Someone found a previously unknown deep sea monster Australian research vessel in the Cocos Islands. On the expedition, the marine biodiversity of Australia’s outer regions was investigated, with great success: the ship called the Investigator covered 13,000 kilometers in 35 days, and in the meantime, it mapped previously undiscovered mountains, vents and underwater pits, and found several new species.
The quantity is not yet clear: researchers have found a number of flying fish, eel fish and ogcocephalioidea species, but a number of them unknown to science will be revealed only later. Tim O’Hara, Head of Research at Start
shownthey expect to discover many unknown species, because the waters located 2,500 kilometers from the coast of Australia have not yet been examined by few people.
It will be a protected area
O’Hara’s predictions came true: on the sea floor at the intersection of the Pacific and Indian oceans and closer to the surface, they found something that may not have yet been classified. In the waters around the Cocos Islands and Christmas Island, the Australian government has proposed creating a new marine national park, so that the newly discovered species would also be protected.
There are a lot of flying fish in the area, six different species have been identified, but the researchers also examined the sea floor, so they collected samples from a depth of 5,500 meters. According to O’Hara, a third of the species collected were previously unknown, including one blind snake fish very. Blind snakes live near the bottom of the sea, their eyes have receded and their skin has become transparent.
According to the leader of the expedition, the collected species is of course only the tip of the iceberg, but since humanity knows so little about deep-sea fauna, they are certainly interesting discoveries – even if O’Hara’s estimate is not achieved and fewer unidentified animals are found. Previously known, you guessed.
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