One guitar -shaped shark one range -shaped coral and one poisonous deepwater snail equipped with bars -like teeth are among 866 previously unknown species discovered as part of an ambitious effort to document marine life.
Found by divers, submersible piloted and remotely operated vehicles during 10 ocean expeditions, species were considered new to science, according to Ocean Census, a global alliance to protect marine life, which this week released the first major update since its release in 2023.
The 10 -year project aims to fill the huge gaps in scientists’ knowledge of ocean depths. Michelle Taylor, coral specialist at Essex University and Ocean Census main researcher, said the scope for discoveries is immense.
“Probably only 10% of marine species were discovered,” Taylor told CNN On board the Schmidt Ocean Institute’s Falkor Research Ship, during a 35 -day expedition to the South South Sandwich islands in the South Atlantic Ocean. “And for the species that were discovered… with Ocean Census, it is through a wide variety of taxons; So everything, from sharks to fish-fish, gastropods (like snails) to my own small and beautiful corals. ”
Scientists found the new 1 meter to 4,990 meters depth species, with analyzes conducted by scientists involved in the Ocean Census scientific network, which includes more than 800 scientists from 400 institutions.
Taylor was confident that the expedition he is participating in would add more species to the list – including what she suspected was an previously unknown coral collected three days earlier. “This is an area of the world very remote,” she said. “It took eight days on the boat from southern Chile to get here. It is very rarely visited. ”
Accelerating the discovery of species
As a coral expert, Taylor said one of her favorites among the new discovered discoveries was an elegant octocoral, which has eight tentacles, is found in the Maldives and is softer and flexible than other coral species.
The Ocean Census researchers also located the tubar-tubal, which belongs to the genre known as Rhinobatos, on the coast of Mozambique and Tanzania. Its shape is distinctive, and the animal displays characteristics of both sharks and rays.
“Shark species; Its numbers are falling dramatically in every oceans of the world, so discovering a new species is quite special, ”said Taylor.
A separate expedition has found new species such as a lapa, a marine mollusk with conch shell, and a sea star in polar waters at a depth of 3,053 meters in the sea of Norway-Groenland. The creatures there prosper in an extreme temperature variation environment: from close to freezing to areas just meters away from fluids from hydrothermal sources that exceed 300 ° C.
A predator gastropod called the magnificent turridruple was another remarkable find. These deep water snails inject toxins into their prey with their unusual teeth. Bioactive compounds in related species venom have contributed to medical advances, including pain treatments.
New technologies such as genetic sequencing of environmental DNA and real -time images is making the identification of new sea species faster and easier, but scientists still depend on the collection of physical specimens for confirmation, which can be slow work, Taylor said.
Scientifically describing a new species can take several years, and many of the previously unknown organisms revealed by the Ocean Census have not yet been formally appointed, Taylor said. A key goal of the alliance is to accelerate the rhythm of discoveries. When it was launched, the scientists involved with the project said they intended to identify 100,000 new species in 10 years.
“Going through the process of academic review by peers to… having the name of this kind in an article can take an extraordinarily long time that is almost preventing this knowledge,” said Taylor.
“Our marine environments are facing some extraordinary challenges, and if we want to start understanding biodiversity, connectivity, biogeography and potential loss, how this climate change will impact our marine environment, we need to start finding faster ways.”
See also: According to the world’s smallest in the world, it is discovered in Brazil
This content was originally published in “Guarão-Guitar” and “Choir-Leque”: Project Discover 866 Marine Species on the CNN Brazil website.
Source: CNN Brasil
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