{"id":28870,"date":"2026-06-11T01:40:14","date_gmt":"2026-06-11T01:40:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/28870\/"},"modified":"2026-06-11T01:40:14","modified_gmt":"2026-06-11T01:40:14","slug":"scientists-discover-149-new-marine-species-off-christmas-and-cocos-keeling-islands","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/28870\/","title":{"rendered":"Scientists discover 149 new marine species off Christmas and Cocos (Keeling) Islands"},"content":{"rendered":"

More than 100 new species have been recorded and catalogued for the first time in some of Australia’s most remote territorial waters.<\/p>\n

The often bizarre benthic creatures were found dwelling across 22 seamounts, or massive subsea mountains, near the Christmas and Cocos (Keeling) Islands, nearly 3,000 kilometres north-west of Perth.<\/p>\n

Scientists from Museums Victoria, CSIRO and Australian Museum collected 1,000 specimens over two voyages in 2021 and 2022 aboard their 94-metre oceanographic research vessel, the Investigator.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

A close relative of the starfish, brittle stars or ophiuroids were the most abundant creature of all those found. (Supplied: CSIRO)<\/p>\n

Their findings, published this week, suggest at least 149 \u2014 everything from sea stars to worms to sea cucumbers \u2014 were unknown to humanity until now.<\/p>\n

“It’s an incredibly important environment, and we know nothing about it,” paper co-author and jellyfish expert Claire Rowe said.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

A new species of greeneye fish. (Supplied: CSIRO)<\/p>\n

“Some of these specimens have been collected down to 5,000 metres below the surface. I can’t even run 5ks.<\/p>\n

“They’re all weird and wacky, but really adapted to their environment, which is incredibly cool.”\"A<\/p>\n

Claire Rowe sorts specimens aboard the RV Investigator. (Supplied: CSIRO)<\/p>\n

Deep-sea ‘flower’<\/p>\n

One of the new species is among the deepest ever discovered in more than 100 voyages by the RV Investigator.<\/p>\n

The annelid worm, which scientists have named Bathyvermilioides juliebrocka, is just millimetres long and was captured at a depth of around 4,990 metres.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Translucent worms like this one (Laetmonice murrayae) were found thousands of metres beneath the surface. (Supplied: CSIRO)<\/p>\n

The animal itself is a rare sight, beyond the feather-like tentacle that protrudes from its hard tubular shell of calcium carbonate.<\/p>\n

“In a way, it looks like a little flower,” explained Elena Kupriyanova, a deep-sea worm researcher and voyage crew member<\/p>\n

Dr Kupriyanova said it was “surprising” to find a firm-bodied creature so far down, where others had evolved to be gelatinous under the crushing weight of roughly 500 atmospheres.<\/p>\n

“Somehow these animals managed to calcify and maintain their tube despite this high pressure in the abyss,” she said.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Another of the new species, O’Loughlin’s Sea Cucumber (Deima oloughlini), was named for respected Australian marine taxonomist Mark O’Loughlin. (Supplied: CSIRO)<\/p>\n

Dr Kupriyanova said the seamounts’ rich biodiversity helped dispel the long-held “endemism” theory that these habitats had developed in isolation.<\/p>\n

Instead, she likened them to “stepping stones”, allowing deep-sea organisms to hop from one to the next in a chain of ecosystems.<\/p>\n

“Because we can have examples of both unique fauna and actually quite common species on different seamounts around the world,” Dr Kupriyanova said.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Far friendlier in appearance was the sponge crab (Sphaerodromia brizops), known for its habit of wearing marine invertebrates like a hat. (Supplied: Museums Victoria\/Benjamin Healley)<\/p>\n

Snapshot of a world in flux<\/p>\n

Almost half a decade later, the two expeditions of the RV Investigator continue to yield tranches of discoveries and a long string of publications, with more than 400 collected species still on the shelf, waiting to be described.<\/p>\n

The often lengthy and laborious process requires scientists to prove their finds using genetic material and compare them against international databases.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

The RV Investigator docked in deep water off the Cocos (Keeling) Islands in 2022. (Supplied: Museums Victoria\/Benjamin Healley)<\/p>\n

Parks Australia acting director Allyn White said the results offered important data for managing two of the authority’s most distant and pristine marine parks.<\/p>\n

The trips also involved mapping the sea floor using the vessel’s advanced sonar system.<\/p>\n

“What it does give us is a really great snapshot of what the deep-sea environment was like when the marine parks were created and what sort of species were there,” he said.<\/p>\n

“So that when you come back \u2026 you’ve got baseline information and you can understand what changes may happen over time in the marine environment.”\"A<\/p>\n

Claire Rowe says deep-sea jellyfish come in brilliant colours. (Supplied: CSIRO)<\/p>\n

Dr Rowe said it was especially critical for combating human impacts in the region.<\/p>\n

“There are so many threats to our marine environment at the moment: overfishing, climate change,” she said.<\/p>\n

“The more we find now, the more we can understand how some species may adapt, how some species may not. It’s all connected.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"More than 100 new species have been recorded and catalogued for the first time in some of Australia’s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":28871,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[22,8563,21,26477,26478,9689,26474,26479,26480,26476,20238,3686,26475,464],"class_list":["post-28870","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australian-museum","tag-austrlia","tag-christmas-island","tag-cocos-island","tag-csiro","tag-deep-sea","tag-deep-sea-creatures","tag-indian-ocean-territories","tag-ocean","tag-pilbara-news","tag-science","tag-seabed","tag-wa-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28870","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28870"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28870\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28871"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28870"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28870"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28870"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}