Marine scientists have discovered more than 110 species of fish and invertebrates in the Coral Sea – a number they believe could exceed 200 as more are identified.
The species were found in waters between 200 meters and 3km deep in the Coral Sea marine park, Australia’s largest marine protected area, which is about 1m sq km east of the Great Barrier Reef.
The new scientific species – including brittlestars, crabs, sea anemones and sponges – were collected during a 35-day voyage by CSIRO’s Investigator research vessel, which left Brisbane last October. It went as far as Mellish Reef, about 1,000km off the coast of Queensland.
Dr Will White, a shark expert and lead scientist for the CSIRO expedition, said the expedition aimed to learn more about the diversity of deep-water ecosystems, for which there was “very little data”.
The specimens collected on board were later identified in what White believed to be “probably the largest marine animal analysis exercise ever undertaken in Australia”.
White himself identified four new species – skate, ray, deepwater catshark and chimaera.
The type of ray, found on the Kenn Plateau about halfway between Australia and New Caledonia was a type of stingaree, in the genus. Urolophus. The animals resembled stingrays, White said. They have a long tail but have a caudal fin at the end.
A new deep-water catshark (type Apristurus) was a tropical species, White said. They have very dark bodies, they are relatively weak – deep water creatures, they move very slowly, [with] many small teeth.”
The skate, by genus I’m going to diveit was light blue, with a “very long nose and … a hard piece of cartilage in the middle of it”, White said. It has a piece of flesh that forms a long triangular nose; it has thorns around the eyes.
Another discovery was a new chimaera – also known as ghost shark or rat fish – a type of animal related to sharks and rays, with cartilage instead of bones. The animals have “a rat-like tail, a very thick snout, and a large spine above the dorsal fin”.
Dr Claire Rowe, manager of the marine invertebrate collection at the Australian Museum, said that invertebrate experts on board the Explorer photographed and took tissue samples of the newly collected animals.
He said many invertebrates, including jellyfish, were invisible – difficult to identify based on physical characteristics alone. “It seems that there are new species of anemones, which is very exciting,” he said.
The scientists were conducting further genetic tests from the tissue samples to confirm whether the samples collected were new to science.
Such voyages were important, Rowe said, because “so little is known about the deep sea”.
“It’s an unexplored area, and with so many threats to our oceans, like overfishing and climate change and deep-sea mining, we need to understand what’s out there before it’s lost.”
The Coral Sea is half as warm as it was 30 or 40 years ago, climate scientists say. The sea surface temperature there last summer and calendar year was the hottest on record.
Specimens from this tour are shared around the country, and are held in collections including the CSIRO, the Australian Museum and state museums.
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