Ocean researchers have announced the discovery of 866 new marine species, including a guitar shark, sea butterfly, mud dragon, squat lobster, bamboo coral, water bear, sea spider and brittle star.
The Nippon Foundation-Nekton Ocean Census – the world’s largest mission to accelerate the discovery of ocean life – hopes its marine exploration programme will make many more exciting discoveries like these. The global collaboration, which launched in April 2023, aims to find at least 100,000 new marine species in its first decade.
Over 16 months, scientists from institutions around the world identified over 800 new marine species from one metre below the surface all the way down to 4,990 metres. They used scuba diving equipment, submersibles and remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) to scour these ecosystems.
“The ocean covers 71% of our planet, yet it is said that only around 10% of marine life has been discovered so far, leaving an estimated 1–2 million species still undocumented,” says Mitsuyuki Unno, executive director of The Nippon Foundation, which funds the Ocean Census. “These latest findings demonstrate how international collaboration can advance our understanding of ocean biodiversity.”
The scientists are particularly excited by a new species of guitar shark, which was discovered by “Lost Shark Guy” David Ebert who has dedicated his career to searching for unknown shark species around the world. Found 200m deep off the coast of Mozambique and Tanzania, this animal is just the 38th known species of guitar shark in the world. With their flat body and wide head, these highly threatened fish are shaped just like a guitar – hence the name.
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Also found off the African coastline was a pygmy pipehorse measuring just 4cm long. This tiny animal – which is related to seahorses, seadragons and pipefish and displays a similar mastery of camouflage – was discovered off South Africa’s tropical Indian Ocean coast. Until now, its genus has only been found in New Zealand, which has much cooler waters. It has never been seen in Africa before.
Researchers also found a deep-sea limpet in of the Norwegian-Greenland Sea which lives in waters so acidic that the layers its shell is at risk of dissolving and it must constantly rebuild them to protect itself. This fascinating mollusc was found 3,053m deep.
In the Canary Islands, the Ocean Census Macaronesia – Tenerife expedition found a new mollusc (Granulina nekton) 48m deep. Taxonomists Jesús Ortea (University of Oviedo) and Leopoldo Moro (Biodiversity Service, Canary Islands Government) described the species just 48 hours later. The global average to describe a new species – give it a name and publish details about it in a scientific journal – is 13.5 years.
This means some species are at risk of going extinct before they are scientifically documented. “Too many species remain in limbo for years because the process of formally describing them is too slow,” says Professor Lucy Woodall, head of science at Ocean Census. “We urgently need to change that.”
Through its alliance of scientists, Ocean Census hopes to speed up both the discovery and description of new species to give researchers a chance to study these new animals before it’s too late.
The discoveries also included a new marine gastropod (Turridrupa magnifica) found off New Caledonia and Vanuatu whose venom could be useful in developing pain relief; a barnacle (Amigdoscalpellum calicicolum) that lives on the rim of deep-sea cup corals, discovered 900m deep of the coast of New Zealand; and a soft coral wrapped around a crinoid, like moss growing on a tree, at a depth of 2,203m in the Jøtul Hydrothermal Vent Field, Arctic Ocean.
With all these exciting discoveries under its belt, the programme hopes this new knowledge will be used to protect ocean ecosystems around the world.
“We’ve pioneered new methods, forged key partnerships, established a global network of participating scientists, and overcome the hurdles of a truly global mission,” says Oliver Steeds, director of the Ocean Census. “We are laying the groundwork to make large-scale species discovery a reality, but our impact will ultimately be determined by how this knowledge is used to support marine protection, climate adaptation, and biodiversity conservation.”
Learning more about our ocean is vital, says Woodall: “Every new species – whether a shark or a sponge – deepens our understanding of marine ecosystems and the benefits they provide for the planet.”
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