An incredible video shows a bizarre and enormous string-like creature drifting in the ocean just off Australia. The slender animal is a siphonophore and is actually a huge colony of tiny animals called zooids acting as one entity, blurring the lines between acting as an organ and an animal.

The Binomial Naming System is the agreed method in place for giving a name to a newly discovered species. It involves giving a two-part name that lists the genus and species, which for this siphonophore is Apolemia uvaria. As a science writer, I have to respect this as the official nomenclature, but as an appreciator of long, vague and comical phrases I much prefer this species’ colloquial name, the "long stringy stringy thingy".

And stringy stringy it is indeed. In a recent post on Twitter, Schmidt Ocean, a nonprofit working to advanced oceanographic research, shared mind-blowing footage of what’s thought could be the longest animal on the planet. The video was captured on the Ningaloo Canyons expedition, which aims to explore benthic biodiversity in Cape Range and Cloates Canyons in Australia. They had been investigating the deep-sea environments using an ROV and sonar when they spotted the giant marine noodle on their way back up to the surface.

The discovery has certainly been met with some excitement from other scientists, as previous estimates on the greatest length of these creatures put them at just a few meters. So how has oceanic exploration so far managed to miss such an enormous creature out at sea? “It's as difficult to spend time in deep blue water as it is to study the seafloor,” Dr Nerida G Wilson, a senior research scientist on the expedition, said in an email to IFLScience. “So ultimately, we have not spent enough time in that environment to have a good idea about how common this animal might be, or other individuals of that size. But based on the reactions of other scientists, it appears to be quite special.”