Laura is a science news writer, covering a wide variety of subjects, but she is particularly fascinated by all things aquatic, paleontology, nanotechnology, and exploring how science influences daily life. Laura is a proud former resident of the New Jersey shore, a competitive swimmer, and a fierce defender of the Oxford comma.
The Pacific is the largest and deepest ocean basin on the planet. Scientists barely know just how many different organisms call these deep waters home. Many of these areas are remote and difficult to explore, but that hasn’t stopped efforts to find out what’s really lurking under the sea. In February, a team of researchers exploring the Bounty Trough off the coast of New Zealand discovered roughly 100 new and potentially new marine species.
Ocean Census/NIWA “It looks like we have a great haul of new, undiscovered species,” Ocean Census science director and expedition co-leader Alex Rogers said in a statement. “By the time all our specimens are examined, we will be north of 100 new species. But what’s really surprised me here is the fact this extends to animals like fish–we think we’ve got three new species of fish.” The team also found dozens of new mollusks, a shrimp, and a cephalopod that is a type of predatory mollusk.
Ocean Census/NIWA “We now think it could be a new species of octocoral, but also a new genus ,” Queensland Museum Network taxonomist Michela Mitchell said in a statement. “Even more excitingly, it could be a whole new group outside of the octocoral. If it is, that is a significant find for the deep sea and gives us a much clearer picture of the planet’s unique biodiversity.” Expeditions to underexplored ocean regions like the Bounty Trough are critical to discovering new species.
Ocean Census/NIWA “We’ve gone to lots of different habitats and discovered a whole range of new species, from fish to snails, to corals, and sea cucumbers–really interesting species that are going to be new to science,” NIWA marine biologist Sadie Mills said in a statement. At the beginning of the February 2024 expedition, the team used an imagine system and video cameras to map the area.
Ocean Census/NIWA The specimens will be stored at the NIWA Invertebrate Collection and National Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa in their Mollusca and Fish Collections. The findings will also be included in future editions of the New Zealand Marine Biota NIWA Biodiversity Memoir.
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