subject: New Ocean Creatures Found By Australian Team [print this page] New Ocean Creatures Found By Australian Team
The researchers estimate that 66 percent of the invertebrate species they studied, are unknown to modern science. Assessment teams have discovered hundreds of new types of sponges, starfish, shrimps, corals and crabs, in previously undiscovered waters off Australia.
Peter Garrett, Australian minister for the environment, heritage and the arts, said ''We probably know more about the surface of the moon than we do about some of the vast reaches of our oceans''.
Here are some of the exciting new finds:
The pink handfish is one of the nine newly named species described in a recent scientific review of the handfish family. It walks on its fins, rather than swimming above the ocean floor.
Just four specimens of the obscure four-inch (ten-centimeter) pink handfish have ever been captured, and all of those were collected from regions around the city of Hobart on the Australia, on the island of Tasmania.
It's taken up to present time for scientists to officially recognize it as an exceptional species, even though the last sighting of a living pink handfish was in 1999.
The shallow, coastal waters off southeastern Australia contain all of the world's 14 known species of handfish.
A brand new variety of crab was discovered hiding around seamounts 1.2 miles (2 kilometers) deep about 100 to 200 nautical miles (185 to 370 kilometers) off the southern coast of Tasmania.
A new species of sea star, or starfish, was discovered among deepwater corals about 3,658 feet (1,115 meters) below the surface in the Huon Commonwealth Marine Reserve, one of two sites recently surveyed by the Australian team.
They found anew variety of Plesionika shrimp existing at depths of 1.2 miles (2 kilometers).
They also captured an unknown species of Ophiomitrella brittle star during the survey.
A new species of Plesionika shrimp was found dwelling at depths of 1.2 miles (2 kilometers) off the Tasmanian coast.
"The latest discoveries shows us there's so much out there that we don't know" said Justin Marshall, a marine scientist at the University of Queensland. "We may be destroying habitat before we even know what's there, so we need to describe it before it's gone."
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