Australian-Kiwi Mission Finds Strange New Ocean Life

Discoveries included other creatures given names like blobfish, prickly dogfish, viperfish, fangtooths, slickheads, giant sea spiders, goblin shrimp and jewel squid. The haul also included the fossilised tooth of an extinct “megalodon” — a shark twice the size of the Great White, according to shark expert Peter Last. “The tooth had been lying on the seafloor for millions of years before being picked up in a deep-sea bottom sled,” Last said.

“Many species new to science were recognized including new sharks and rays, redfish, rattails, and a range of invertebrates,” said expedition member Mark Norman. A giant sea spider the size of a dinner plate and armoured shrimps were also found. In total, 500 species of fish and 1300 of invertebrates were found. Categorization, including that of more than 100 new species and the rare finds, will take until the end of the year.

The official website of the expedition is here.

5 thoughts on “Australian-Kiwi Mission Finds Strange New Ocean Life”

  1. I wonder if any human has ever eaten them. Dory (a deep sea fish) is common these days – it tastes nice but it’s as ugly as the fish on the right in the photo, someone had to be hungry enough to try eating it first ;)

  2. from “Finding Nemo” (she’s the blue one) I don’t know if Dory is a dory or not.

  3. Dory the blue tang is par for the course of the movie, I guess – Nemo’s father is named Marlin but he is a clownfish. Confusing! :-)

Comments are closed.