{"id":651637,"date":"2026-05-19T03:55:13","date_gmt":"2026-05-19T03:55:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/651637\/"},"modified":"2026-05-19T03:55:13","modified_gmt":"2026-05-19T03:55:13","slug":"photos-strange-new-sea-creatures-discovered-on-ocean-census-expeditions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/651637\/","title":{"rendered":"Photos: Strange new sea creatures discovered on Ocean Census expeditions"},"content":{"rendered":"

It lives in a glass castle deep under the sea.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not a character from The Little Mermaid but a very real, very mysterious marine worm. Known as Dalhousiella yabukii, the worm resides inside a glass sea sponge \u2014 a simple marine animal that forms a glass-like skeleton \u2014 in the cold, dark waters off the coast of Japan. And it\u2019s just one of a massive trove of marine animal species that scientists say they recently discovered.<\/p>\n

\"Dalhousiella<\/a><\/p>\n

Dalhousiella yabukii, a new species of polychaete worm found in deep waters off the coast of Japan. The Nippon Foundation-Nekton Ocean Census\/JAMSTEC<\/p>\n

This week, the Ocean Census<\/a> \u2014 a project that has set out to accelerate the discovery of sea life \u2014 announced that it has found 1,121 previously unknown ocean species since last April. That marks a massive jump in the number of newly discovered marine species in a single year, according to Oliver Steeds, director of the Ocean Census, a joint mission of the UK-based nonprofit Nekton and Japan\u2019s largest philanthropic organization, The Nippon Foundation. Some of the other newly found creatures include fish, rays, sponges, and soft corals (you can see more of them below).<\/p>\n

Though it may seem that Earth is already largely explored, the vast majority of animal species on Earth \u2014 perhaps as many as 90 percent of them<\/a> \u2014 remain undescribed. \u201cThis is really a planetary blindspot,\u201d said Steeds, who\u2019s also the founder and chief executive of Nekton.<\/p>\n

The Ocean Census, which launched three years ago, is trying to close the gap in the marine realm by exploring remote ocean regions with the help of high-tech submersibles and taxonomists. And to that end, this large batch of species is an important step forward \u2014 with one major caveat.<\/p>\n

Meet some of the weird creatures they found <\/p>\n

While the search for life beyond Earth has been a magnet for public attention, missions like the Ocean Census reveal that there is a lot we still don\u2019t know about life on our home planet \u2014 much of which looks pretty darn alien.<\/p>\n

Most critters that the expeditions revealed are pretty small, like this striking ribbon worm. Found in the waters near Timor-Leste in Southeast Asia, the worm\u2019s bright colors may be a signal to predators that it produces defensive toxins, according to a press release announcing the new findings. Such toxins may be useful in drug development; scientists have previously investigated<\/a> chemicals produced by similar worms to treat cognitive disorders, such as Alzheimer\u2019s disease.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a><\/p>\n

A small ribbon worm found in the waters of Timor-Leste. The Nippon Foundation-Nekton Ocean Census\/Gustav Paulay<\/p>\n

Remarkably, the discovery effort also uncovered larger animals, which have likely managed to evade detection because they live at such great depths and in less-explored regions.<\/p>\n

The most charismatic among them is, perhaps, this new species of \u201cghost shark\u201d that scientists found off the coast of Australia. Though distantly related to sharks and rays, ghost sharks are not actually sharks at all but chimaeras, a deep-sea fish with a skeleton made of cartilage instead of bone.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a><\/p>\n

A potentially new species of chimaera found in Australia\u2019s Coral Sea Marine Park. The Nippon Foundation-Nekton Ocean Census\/CSIRO<\/p>\n

In the same region, scientists also found an unknown species of ray \u2026<\/p>\n

\"An<\/a><\/p>\n

An unknown species of ray found in Australia\u2019s Coral Sea Marine Park. The Nippon Foundation-Nekton Ocean Census\/CSIRO<\/p>\n

\u2026and an unfamiliar example of what\u2019s known as a catshark. They\u2019re bottom dwellers with slender bodies, and some of them<\/a> apparently have a feline appearance (I\u2019m not seeing it in this particular fish, which was found deep underwater in Australia.)<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a><\/p>\n

A catshark in the genus Apristurus, also found in Australian waters. The Nippon Foundation-Nekton Ocean Census\/CSIRO<\/p>\n

Then there are animals that don\u2019t look like animals at all. Like this unfamiliar sea sponge found in the South Atlantic, not far from Antarctica. Belonging to a group of animals known as the ping-pong ball sponges (for obvious reasons), this animal is carnivorous and uses those balls \u2014 which are covered in tiny Velcro-like hooks \u2014 to entrap unsuspecting prey drifting by, such as small crustaceans.<\/p>\n

\"a<\/a><\/p>\n

A potentially new species of ping-pong ball sponge discovered in the South Atlantic Ocean. ROV SuBastian\/Schmidt Ocean Institute<\/p>\n

Also in the South Atlantic, scientists found an unknown variety of \u201csea pen,\u201d a kind of soft coral, more than 2,600 feet below the surface. It\u2019s not one individual animal but a colony of thousands of genetically identical polyps, soft-bodied creatures with tentacles.<\/p>\n

\"An<\/a><\/p>\n

A recently discovered coral-like organism called a sea pen. Paul Satchell\/The Nippon Foundation-Nekton Ocean Census\/Schmidt Ocean Institute<\/p>\n

(You can see more of the alien-like species found through the Ocean Census here<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

Are these species actually new? <\/p>\n

The announcement from the Ocean Census says that scientists \u201cdiscovered\u201d more than 1,100 \u201cnew\u201d species in a single year. Those words must be taken with a grain of salt.<\/p>\n

Proving that a species is new to science is difficult. It typically requires that taxonomists comb through existing museum collections and academic literature to demonstrate that, based on anatomical, genetic, or other traits, what they have has not been documented before. They can then submit their evidence for peer review and publication \u2014 the typical process through which a species is formally described and officially named, thus becoming a new species.<\/p>\n

Many of the discoveries announced by the Ocean Census, however, have not yet gone through that level of due diligence and have not been formally described, according to Greg Rouse, a marine taxonomist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. That means it\u2019s not clear that all of those species are, in fact, new to science.<\/p>\n

As the Ocean Census points out in its announcement, the time between collecting a species and formally describing it as new takes about 13 years on average. That means some animals could go extinct before they\u2019re even described in the scientific literature, the group says. \u201cBut that 13 years is there for a reason,\u201d said Rouse, who isn\u2019t involved in the Ocean Census project.<\/p>\n

Formally describing and naming a species not only confirms that it\u2019s new, but it also makes the species easier to study and conserve, such as through laws that protect named endangered species.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe formal description process carries out the actual work to confirm novelty and provides the \u2018passport\u2019 for that new species \u2014 its official record,\u201d said Tammy Horton, a research scientist at the UK\u2019s National Oceanography Centre. \u201cWithout this, the formally recognised name, the species effectively does not exist for science, and therefore also for policy \u2014 unnamed species cannot be protected.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a><\/p>\n

An expedition vessel run by the research organization Schmidt Ocean Institute in the South Sandwich Islands, where many of the potentially new species were discovered. Schmidt Ocean Institute<\/p>\n

Karen Osborn, a taxonomist at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, similarly expressed skepticism about the announcement. Discovery alone is not enough, said Osborn, who\u2019s not directly involved in the Ocean Census. \u201cI don\u2019t feel like saying, \u2018Oh, look, we discovered something new\u2019 should be given the status of something being described \u2014 until you\u2019ve actually done the work to show that it\u2019s something unique,\u201d Osborn said. But, she said, \u201cit\u2019s a step in the right direction.\u201d<\/p>\n

A significant number of species uncovered by the Ocean Census and its partners are, in fact, already described in the scientific literature, Steeds, of Ocean Census, told me. He didn\u2019t know how many. \u201cIt is not for us to do that,\u201d he said of formally describing the species. (In many cases, taxonomists involved in the discoveries will later put in the time to formally describe them.) \u201cOur job is discovery and to accelerate discovery,\u201d Steeds said, which is the first step toward the formal new species description.<\/p>\n

Horton, who\u2019s also not directly affiliated with the Ocean Census, emphasized this point, too: \u201cIt is important to recognise that the identification or \u2018discovery\u2019 process is a fundamental part of the pipeline towards the ultimate goal of description of a species as new to science,\u201d she told Vox. \u201cYou cannot have one without the other.\u201d<\/p>\n

Might some of these species not, in fact, be new? \u201cIt is something that we all need to be aware of,\u201d Steeds told me. \u201cSpecies discovery, species description are always a hypothesis \u2014 that\u2019s the nature of it. And things do change.\u201d (Horton suspects it\u2019s not very common for taxonomists to believe something is new to science and later find out that it\u2019s an individual of an already described species.)<\/p>\n

If there\u2019s one thing that the Ocean Census\u2019s findings are helping reveal with absolute certainty, it\u2019s that so much of the planet\u2019s biodiversity remains a mystery. That\u2019s exciting and hopeful.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would love people to know how much we don\u2019t know about how much is out there,\u201d Osborn said. \u201cWe\u2019ve barely scratched the surface on understanding our world.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It lives in a glass castle deep under the sea. It\u2019s not a character from The Little Mermaid…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":651638,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[1687,9168,79,201],"class_list":["post-651637","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-climate","tag-down-to-earth","tag-science","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/651637","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=651637"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/651637\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/651638"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=651637"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=651637"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=651637"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}