Just off the coast of Costa Rica, some 8,500 feet below the water surface, a "new undersea mineral chimney" was discovered by an expedition led by U.S. researchers. Aboard the WHOI research vessel Atlantis, the team found that this vent emitted hot, iron-darkened water that attracted "unusual" marine life.

The Medusa hydrothermal vent, as the expedition members called it, had bell-shaped pink jellyfish swimming near it. The team described the jellyfish as "really unusual."

Karen Von Damm, an earth sciences professor from the University of New Hampshire, said, "The ones we found may be of a different species because nobody has seen types of this color before." The species has yet to be expertly identified.

The discovery, however, was likened to that of "the serpent-haired Medusa of Greek myth" because of the image that the numerous spiky tubeworm casings around the vent gave. The expedition is a collection of experts from Duke University and the Universities of New Hampshire, South Carolina and Florida.

There are no pictures as of this report to illustrate the discovery or the supposedly new species of jellyfish. The expedition is currently being funded by the National Science Foundation.