Peering deep into the sea, scientists are finding creatures more mysterious than many could have imagined.
At one site, nearly 3.2km deep in the Atlantic, shrimp were living around a vent that was releasing water heated to 407 degrees Celsius. Water surrounding the site was a chilly 2 degrees Celsius.
An underwater peak in the Coral Sea was home to a type of shrimp thought to have gone extinct 50 million years ago.
PHOTO: AP
More than 4.8km beneath the Sargasso Sea, in the Atlantic, researchers collected a dozen new species eating each other or living on organic material that drifts down from above.
"Animals seem to have found a way to make a living just about everywhere,'' said Jesse Ausubel of the Sloan Foundation, discussing the findings of year six of the census of marine life.
"We can't find anyplace where we can't find anything new," Ron O'Dor, a senior scientist with the census, added.
This year's update, released on Sunday, is part of a study of life in the oceans that is scheduled for final publication in 2010.
The census is an international effort supported by governments, divisions of the UN and private conservation organizations. Approximately 2,000 researchers from 80 countries are participating.
Ausubel said there are nearly 16,000 known species of marine fish and 70,000 kinds of marine mammals. A couple of thousand have been discovered during the census.
The researchers conducted 19 ocean expeditions this year; a 20th continues in the Antarctic. In addition, they operated 128 nearshore sampling sites and, using satellites, followed more than 20 tagged species including sharks, squid, sea lions and albatross.
Highlights of this year's research included:
* Shrimp, clams and mussels living near the super-hot thermal vent in the Atlantic, where they face pulses of water that is near-boiling despite shooting into the frigid sea.
* In the sea surrounding the Antarctic, a community of marine life shrouded in darkness beneath more than 1,600 feet of ice. Sampling of this remote ocean yielded more new species than familiar ones.
* Off the coast of New Jersey, 20 million fish swarming in a school the size of Manhattan.
* Finding alive and well, in the Coral Sea, a species of shrimp called Neoglyphea neocaledonica, thought to have disappeared millions of years ago. Researchers nicknamed it the Jurassic shrimp.
* Satellite tracking of tagged sooty shearwaters, small birds, that mapped the birds' 70,000km search for food in a giant figure eight over the Pacific Ocean, from New Zealand via Polynesia to foraging grounds in Japan, Alaska and California and then back. The birds averaged a surprising 350km daily. In some cases, a breeding pair made the entire journey together.
* A new find, a 2kg rock lobster discovered off Madagascar.
* A single-cell creature big enough to see, in the Nazare Canyon off Portugal. The fragile new species was found 4,270m deep. It is enclosed within a plate-like shell, four-tenths of an inch in diameter, composed of mineral grains.
* A new type of crab with a furry appearance, near Easter Island. It was so unusual it warranted a whole new family designation, Kiwaidae, named for Kiwa, the Polynesian goddess of shellfish.
Its furry appearance justified its species name, hirsuta, which means "hairy."
DISASTER: The Bangladesh Meteorological Department recorded a magnitude 5.7 and tremors reached as far as Kolkata, India, more than 300km away from the epicenter A powerful earthquake struck Bangladesh yesterday outside the crowded capital, Dhaka, killing at least five people and injuring about a hundred, the government said. The magnitude 5.5 quake struck at 10:38am near Narsingdi, Bangladesh, about 33km from Dhaka, the US Geological Survey (USGS) said. The earthquake sparked fear and chaos with many in the Muslim-majority nation of 170 million people at home on their day off. AFP reporters in Dhaka said they saw people weeping in the streets while others appeared shocked. Bangladesh Interim Leader Muhammad Yunus expressed his “deep shock and sorrow over the news of casualties in various districts.” At least five people,
It is one of the world’s most famous unsolved codes whose answer could sell for a fortune — but two US friends say they have already found the secret hidden by Kryptos. The S-shaped copper sculpture has baffled cryptography enthusiasts since its 1990 installation on the grounds of the CIA headquarters in Virginia, with three of its four messages deciphered so far. Yet K4, the final passage, has kept codebreakers scratching their heads. Sculptor Jim Sanborn, 80, has been so overwhelmed by guesses that he started charging US$50 for each response. Sanborn in August announced he would auction the 97-character solution to K4
SHOW OF FORCE: The US has held nine multilateral drills near Guam in the past four months, which Australia said was important to deter coercion in the region Five Chinese research vessels, including ships used for space and missile tracking and underwater mapping, were active in the northwest Pacific last month, as the US stepped up military exercises, data compiled by a Guam-based group shows. Rapid militarization in the northern Pacific gets insufficient attention, the Pacific Center for Island Security said, adding that it makes island populations a potential target in any great-power conflict. “If you look at the number of US and bilateral and multilateral exercises, there is a lot of activity,” Leland Bettis, the director of the group that seeks to flag regional security risks, said in an
‘DIGNITY’: The Ukrainian president said that ‘we did not not betray Ukraine then, we will not do so now,’ amid US pressure to give significant concessions to Russia Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Friday pushed back against a US plan to end the war in Ukraine, while Russian President Vladimir Putin welcomed the proposal that includes many of his hardline demands. With US President Donald Trump giving Ukraine less than a week to sign, Zelenskiy pledged to work to ensure any deal would not “betray” Ukraine’s interests, while acknowledging he risked losing Washington as an ally. Putin said the blueprint could “lay the foundation” for a final peace settlement, but threatened more land seizures if Ukraine walked away from negotiations. Ukraine faces one of the most challenging moments in its history,
RSS