A teenager in Ukraine has unexpectedly helped scientists in
Victoria, B.C., make a rare discovery. Earlier this month,
Kirill Dudko, 14, was watching a live stream of cameras on the
ocean floor when he saw something unusual — a female elephant
seal eating a hagfish. Researcher Kim Juniper says an email from
the teen in Donetsk, Ukraine, caused a flurry of excitement.
“Monday morning we had an email from him saying, ‘I saw
something strange and weird. Some monster just ate a fish in
front of me. What was it?’ And that sent all of us into a bit of
a flurry to back this up." Juniper says it's the first time a
seal has ever been recorded eating a hagfish, a creature so
slimy other predators spit them out. Dudko doesn't speak much
English, and he was up past his bed time on a school night to
explain the story with help from his mother Svetlana. "I'm very
proud of my son,” she told CBC News. The researchers at Neptune
Canada — a research project that links an 800-kilometre network
of instruments on the ocean floor