Washington, Sep 10 - A new robot spent most of July trawling the muddy ocean bottom, about 40 km off the California coast - somewhat like the robotic rovers Spirit and Opportunity that traversed Mars' dusty surface.

The new robot, Benthic Rover, has been providing scientists with an entirely new view of life on the deep seafloor, besides monitoring climate change impact on the deep sea.

Benthic Rover is the result of four years of hard work by a team of engineers and scientists led by Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) project engineer Alana Sherman and marine biologist Ken Smith.

About the size and weight of a small compact car, Benthic Rover moves very slowly across the seafloor, taking photographs of the animals and sediment in its path.

It stops every three to five metres and makes a series of measurements on the community of organisms living in the seafloor sediment. These measurements will help scientists understand the mystery of how animals on the deep seafloor find enough food to survive.

Most life in the deep sea feeds on particles of organic debris, known as marine snow, which drift slowly down from the sunlit surface layers of the ocean.