The first global Census of Marine Life is the culmination of 10 years of marine exploration by 2700 researchers from 80 nations. It shows that life in the oceans is richer, more connected and more vulnerable than previously thought. It also shows that there is a huge amount that we still don't know.
Here is a look at some of the strange new species reported today, plus some other bizarre creatures from the abyss.
This copepod, Ceratonotus steiningeri, was first discovered in the Angola basin in 2006 at a depth of 5400 metres. Within a year it was also collected in both the south-eastern Atlantic and the central Pacific Ocean. How this tiny (0.5 millimetre) animal could live in such far-flung places, yet avoided detection by scientists for so long, remains a mystery.
(Image: Jan Michels)
Meet Vigtorniella, a polychaete worm found on a whale carcass on the ocean floor at a depth of 925 metres at Sagami bay, Japan. Whale carcasses were first observed on the sea floor in the 1980s, using deep-sea robots.
(Image: Yoshihiro Fujiwara/JAMSTEC)
This hydrothermal vent snail is from the genus Alviniconcha, and is the only specimen of its species ever discovered. It was found deep in the Suiyo seamount, living in the pitch dark and high temperatures of the Tokyo hydrothermal vent in the Pacific Ocean. The snail derives its energy with the help of symbionts in its gills.
(Image: Yoshihiro FUJIWARA/JAMSTEC)
This acantharian amoeba grows fragile, crystal shells of strontium sulphate. It is found almost everywhere across the world's oceans and leads its adult life within 300 metres of the surface. During reproduction, the amoeba walls itself in and forms a cyst. This cyst falls like a microscopic snowflake towards the seabed. They have been found as deep as 2000 metres.
Within the sinking shell, the amoeba divides several times so that when the strontium sulphate dissolves, daughter cells can feast on sinking dead phytoplankton.
Acantharians form cysts at any time of year, but the rate is highest in spring, possibly coinciding with the abundance of dead phytoplankton from algal blooms.
(Image: Linda Amaral Zettler)
Kiwa hirsute, the Yeti crab, is a new species found near Easter Island. The crab was so unusual that the researchers decided it must belong to a whole new family, Kiwaidae, and a new genus, Kiwa, named for the Polynesian goddess for shellfish
(Image: A. Fifis/Ifremer)
Beautiful but deadly, this scale worm is an active hunter.
It belongs to a much larger group called the bristle worms, which are found throughout Earth's oceans.
(Image: courtesy of David Shale)
Like an underwater spaceship, a jellyfish, Aequorea macrodactyla, travels through the warm clear waters of the Celebes Sea in the southern Philippines.
The jellyfish was one of thousands of specimens photographed during a three-week expedition led by the Census of Marine Life to explore this highly diverse area.
(Image: Larry Madin, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)
This little blue jelly is yet to be identified. An example of a colonial jelly, it floats at the ocean's surface, its dark blue colour protecting it from the sun's UV light. This one is 3 to 4 millimetres wide, but some were up to 2 centimetres.
(Image: Russ Hopcroft, University of Alaska Fairbanks)
The deepest waters of the Mediterranean were thought to be sparsely populated, but the Census of Marine Life says life is abundant there.
One such species is the heart urchin, Brissopsis lyrifera (see picture), which lives buried in muddy and sandy sediments. It bulldozes its way through the sediment in search of food, in the process allowing oxygen to penetrate deeper and thus helping ensure that other animals can live there.
The Mediterranean's 17,000 species face an unusually severe threat from litter, because the sea is almost entirely enclosed by land and endures heavy shipping traffic. The wars in the former Yugoslavia also led to ammunition and bombs being dumped there.
Journal reference: PLoS One, DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0011832
(Image: Bernard Picton)
Some 11,130 species live in South African waters, and experts think there could be another 6000 waiting to be discovered. Recently, they identified this colourful new species of shrimp.
(Image: Guido Zsilavecz, Cape Town)
Researchers combed the land, sea and shores of the South Orkney Islands, near the tip of the Antarctic peninsula, to find giant sponges. They used scuba divers and trawler nets to catch creatures as deep as 1500 metres.
This huge sponge was one of the more spectacular finds.
Gallery Here
My favorite is the Yeti Crab.
