JAKARTA, Indonesia – Scientists using cutting-edge technology to explore waters off Indonesia were wowed by colorful and diverse images of marine life on the ocean floor — including plate-sized sea spiders and flower-like sponges that appear to be carnivorous.

They predicted Thursday that as many as 50 new plant and animal species may have been discovered during the three-week expedition that ended Aug. 14.

Click image to see photos of the colorful marine life

More than 100 hours of video and 100,000 photographs, captured using a robotic vehicle with high-definition cameras, were piped to shore in real-time by satellite and high-speed Internet.

Verena Tunnicliffe, a professor at the University of Victoria in Canada, said the images provided an extraordinary glimpse into one of the globe’s most complex and little-known marine ecosystems.

Likewise, Tunnicliffe has also seen sea spiders before, but those were tiny in comparison, all around one-inch (2.5 centimeters) long: “The sea spiders … on this mission were huge. Eight-inches (20-centimeters) or more across.”

One animal captured on video looks like a flower, covered with glasslike needles, but scientists think it is probably a carnivorous sponge. The pink spikes, covered with sticky tissue, appear to capture food as it passes by.

Other pictures showed a lavender-colored fish walking on the sea floor and the bright red arms of underwater lilies.