Some deep-sea sea spiders may get methane-derived carbon by eating bacteria that live on their bodies—not by consuming methane gas directly. A 2025 study of three undescribed Sericosura species found methane- and methanol-oxidizing microbes on their exoskeletons and evidence that carbon from those microbes entered spider tissues. The authors propose that the spiders graze on this microbial community, a possible new route for methane carbon to reach deep-sea animals.
What does it mean to say sea spiders are grazing on methane?
The phrase is shorthand. The spiders are not shown eating methane gas. Instead, bacteria on their exoskeletons use methane or methanol, and the spiders appear to take in carbon from those microbes. In this proposed food pathway, microbes process the chemicals first; the animal may then feed on the microbes.
The animals are sea spiders—marine arthropods, not true spiders—and the finding applies to three undescribed species in the genus Sericosura, not to sea spiders generally.
What did the 2025 study find?
Dal Bó and colleagues examined Sericosura from methane seeps along the eastern Pacific margin, including sites at Del Mar, Palos Verdes, and Sanak. They found diverse methane- and methanol-oxidizing bacteria attached to the spiders’ exoskeletons. The reported bacterial groups included Methylomonadaceae, Methylophagaceae, and Methylophilaceae. The study, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on June 16, 2025, combines microbial, imaging, and isotope evidence to examine whether the association provides food.
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Evidence that carbon reaches the spiders
- Field-collected spiders had an average tissue carbon-isotope value of −45‰, consistent with a methane-influenced source of carbon in the study’s seep context.
- About 50% of the microbes detected on the exoskeleton in the study samples were methane- or methanol-oxidizers. This is a result for the sampled spiders, not an estimate for sea spiders as a whole.
- In live-animal incubations, the researchers supplied carbon-13-labeled methane and methanol. Within five days, labeled carbon was detected in spider tissues.
- Microscopy showed dense bacterial aggregations on the exoskeleton; labeled carbon was also found in digestive cells, strengthening the case for nutritional transfer beyond microbes merely being present on the animals.
Taken together, the measurements support a pathway from methane or methanol, through microbes, and into spider biomass. They do not directly record every act of bacterial growth or feeding, so “grazing” remains the authors’ proposed explanation for how the transfer happens.
Where were the spiders found?
The study focused on methane seeps off the eastern Pacific coast. At Del Mar, sampling was conducted at 1,018 metres during expeditions in May 2021 and June 2023. The authors report finding the spiders in active seepage areas, but not at the seep periphery about 25 metres away. That pattern links the animals to seep habitat in the sampled location; it does not establish that every Sericosura population has the same distribution.
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Why does this matter for deep-sea food webs?
Methane seeps are places where chemical energy can support microbial life in the deep ocean. The sea-spider finding suggests that animals may access methane-derived carbon through microbes living on their outer surfaces, rather than only through microbes inside host tissues or through other food-web routes. The authors describe it as a previously unknown interaction between an animal lineage and chemically fueled microbes.
The study identifies a possible route into animal biomass, but it does not measure how much methane-derived carbon these spiders contribute to the ocean-wide carbon cycle. Its evidence comes from a limited set of seep habitats and three species that had not yet been formally described.
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Could the microbes pass from parent spiders to offspring?
The researchers also noted similar microbes on egg sacs carried by male sea spiders. That observation raises the possibility that microbes could reach offspring through the egg-sac association, but it does not prove a transmission route or show that young spiders depend on those microbes.
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What remains uncertain?
- How feeding happens: The experiments show microbial carbon entering spider tissues, but the study does not directly document every step of cultivation and consumption.
- How widespread the strategy is: The finding concerns three undescribed Sericosura species from eastern Pacific methane seeps; it should not be generalized to all sea spiders.
- Its ecosystem-scale importance: The study establishes a potential carbon pathway, not its contribution to global methane cycling or deep-sea food-web production.
- Microbe transfer to young: Microbes on male-carried egg sacs suggest a possibility, not a demonstrated mode of inheritance or transmission.
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