It’s the first of two expeditions to study the inhabitants of deep-sea hydrothermal vents. Microplastics have consistently been reported in deep-sea sediments in the past decade and, more recently, in other deep-sea creatures, such as lobsters and crabs. By contrast, particles didn’t accumulate in specific tissues of deep-sea mussels. Tracing plastic pathwaysThe new study is the first to compare microplastic contamination in animals from two oceans. The Indian Ocean specimens harbored up to 14.7 times more microplastics than those from the southwestern Pacific.