During MBARI's 2012 expedition to the Alarcon Rise, a volcanic spreading center at the south end of the Gulf of California, researchers discovered two entirely new fields of deep-sea hydrothermal vents. The animals living around these vents included large tubeworms (Riftia pachyptila ), whose red gills were up to a foot long, pale pink vent fish (Thermarces cerberus), and innumerable brown limpets that carpeted the sides of the tubeworms.