The skeleton panda has been one of Japan’s most popular marine species since its images ended up online. With its body structure that resembles a skeleton and black “panda-like” spots, it is among the most sought-after creatures by divers who visit the island of Kumejima. Although the Internet coined the name “gaikotsundahoya”, which literally means “sea splash panda skeleton”, the marine creature, which belongs to the Ascidian species, had never before been assigned a scientific name. Now he has it. It was put down in black and white by a group of Japanese researchers in the first scientific study specifically dedicated to the skeleton panda, which is now officially a “Clavelina Ossipandae”.
“The white parts that look like bones are the blood vessels that run horizontally across the sea squirt’s gills. The black parts on the head that look like a panda’s eyes and nose are yet to be studied,” Naohiro Hasegawa, a sea squirt researcher at Hokkaido University, said of the new paper.
Hasegawa first saw images of the animal while browsing Twitter (now