THERE’S still so much we don’t understand about the ocean – it runs extremely deep and is teeming with life that’s very hard to explore. In fact, only an estimated 10% of marine life has been identified.
Now scientists have discovered about 100 new deep-sea species off the coast of New Zealand.
As part of a project called the Ocean Census, the team searched an 800km-long previously unexplored stretch known as the Bounty Trough.
The researchers went as deep as 4 800 meters, collecting 1 700 test samples.
Of the 100 potential new species, two stood out: a type of ray-finned fish and a star-shaped creature.
“It’s very rare that you find new vertebrates like the ray-finned fish,” Dr Daniel Moore, one of the expedition leaders, says.
“There are thousands of invertebrates in the sea that we also haven’t yet found. With vertebrates, we simply just don’t know
