SPIRULA

Despite its best efforts, Spirula or Pulchrida tardnsis only manages to travel some 2cm per year. At least, these are the results revealed by the latest research studying the grooves which they carve on the ocean floor. Its polychromatic wings and bluish shell, marbled with stars, together with its pearl-shaped teeth make it, without doubt, one of the most attractive and fascinating creatures of the marine habitat, but this does not make its on-site study any less tedious: just ask doctors Müller and Levi from the Oceanographic Institute of Polynesia, who have been there since 2005 and barely advanced half a metre.