''Cuthona methana'' is a species of

sea slug Sea slug is a common name for some marine invertebrates with varying levels of resemblance to terrestrial slugs. Most creatures known as sea slugs are gastropods, i.e. they are sea snails (marine gastropod mollusks) that over evolutionary ...

in the family

Tergipedidae Tergipedidae is a family of sea slugs, aeolid nudibranchs, marine gastropod molluscs in the superfamily Fionoidea (according to the of the Gastropoda by Bouchet & Rocroi, 2005). Taxonomic history The bratos in this family were moved to the ...

. It is small, only 4 to 6 millimeters in length, with long gills. ''C. methana'' was discovered on a

seafloor The seabed (also known as the seafloor, sea floor, ocean floor, and ocean bottom) is the bottom of the ocean. All floors of the ocean are known as 'seabeds'. The structure of the seabed of the global ocean is governed by plate tectonics. Most of ...

Hydrate Ridge Hydrate Ridge is an accretionary thrust clathrate hydrate formation, meaning it has been made of sediment scraped off of subducting oceanic plate. It is approx. 200 m (700 ft) high, and located 100 km (62 mi) offshore of Oregon. At hydrate format ...

, with layers of

methane hydrate Methane clathrate (CH4·5.75H2O) or (8CH4·46H2O), also called methane hydrate, hydromethane, methane ice, fire ice, natural gas hydrate, or gas hydrate, is a solid clathrate compound (more specifically, a clathrate hydrate) in which a large amou ...

, which is a mixture of

seawater Seawater, or salt water, is water from a sea or ocean. On average, seawater in the world's oceans has a salinity of about 3.5% (35 g/L, 35 ppt, 600 mM). This means that every kilogram (roughly one liter by volume) of seawater has appr ...

and

methane Methane ( , ) is a chemical compound with the chemical formula (one carbon atom bonded to four hydrogen atoms). It is a group-14 hydride, the simplest alkane, and the main constituent of natural gas. The relative abundance of methane on Ear ...

. It was named for being discovered near methane bubbling out of the seafloor, giving the

species name In taxonomy, binomial nomenclature ("two-term naming system"), also called nomenclature ("two-name naming system") or binary nomenclature, is a formal system of naming species of living things by giving each a name composed of two parts, bo ...

"methana".

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q61706130 Gastropods described in 2018 Tergipedidae Molluscs of the Pacific Ocean