Underwater Expedition n0078

Project name: Homo Aquaticus Egg (aka HAE)
Location: 40.9692° N, 13.0559° E - Zannone Island, Italy
Mission aim: to find and collect the homo aquaticus egg

19th of May 2020, Italian national lockdown, a group of students from the Marine Biology department of the University of Naples decided to re-organise the archive of their university. A presumable series of analogue photographs of a mysterious specimen described as a ‘plant enclosing a white egg’, caught the attention of the students. The document was immediately sent to the labs for deeper scrutiny.

Due to scarce fundings, the students sent the mysterious footage to the American Underwater Research Lab to help them with its validation. After weeks of study and thanks to the sophisticated machineries, the American Lab was able to confirm the found photographs and classify the ‘plant enclosing a white egg’ as a rare and unique egg of the homo aquaticus.

The myth was dispelled: the homo aquaticus not only exists but it has left an egg somewhere in the sea. Incredulous, the students wanted to expand their research and look for documentation on this presumed species that they had never heard of before; the homo aquaticus. Students soon found out that only one specimen of homo aquaticus was observed and it was documented in 2018, in the Island of Zannone, Italy. For its proximity to Naples the students did not hesitate to send two explorers, whose names cannot be revealed, for an unprecedented expedition.

8th of August 2020 a team of young researchers were sent to the Island of Zannone to search the egg of the homo aquaticus.

In the meantime, back in the University of Naples, students kept researching in the hope of finding related documents to support the found footage. They came across a suspicious telegraph sent to the university of Naples by an anglo-italian professor of the university of Camberwell. With the telegraph the professor presented his essay ‘The Metaphor of the Shipwreck’, a theory which showed that the homo aquaticus would generally dwell close to shipwrecks, as a form of neotenic development related to their human ancestor. Without prior hesitation the Italian explorers whose name cannot be revealed, turned their boat and sailed to Ponza, where an American navy boat shipwrecked in 1942, in search of the egg.

12th August, 06:58 am, Punta Papa 40.9286° N, 12.9648° E, Ponza. Depth: 42 metres deep.
Soon a suspicious plant was found, blue and red, with rocky leaves. With a closer inspection, a white egg was identified within the unclassifiable plant. Before celebrating the discovery, the explorers wanted to validate their report by sending the documentation to both the American and Italian institutions.

Both Italian and American institutions decided to leave the egg untouched until further research would verify the potential risk and dangers. It was certain that the unclassifiable plant was presumably a form of protection for the egg but there was not enough knowledge to take any further action. The egg was under constant examination for several days. After three long weeks of research and analysis, the American scientific lab authorised the evacuation of the egg and the university of Naples accepted to host it for closer inspection and protection. The American Underwater Research Lab built and sent an artificial placenta to Naples where the egg could be kept and where it could develop its gestation. Until today, the egg is still enclosed and everyone is waiting for it to hatch. A new homo aquaticus is yet to be re-born.