A team of researchers has discovered new species in the sea. The invertebrates live all over the world at depths between five and 7,800 meters. Among the eleven new discoveries are small crustaceans that have previously puzzled science.
Pink sea cucumbers, which live in the depths of the Atlantic Ocean, have also been reclassified. The strikingly colored animal with the scientific name Psychropotes buglossa was described in 1886, but was then grouped with eleven other species in 1975. Recent DNA analyses have now shown that it is a separate species.
Among the eleven new species is a crustacean that was previously only known from mysterious holes in the seabed, according to the journal ‘Biodiversity Data Journal’. Only after a long period of observation was the animal itself discovered and identified. It is now called Cunicolomaera grata (“Favorite Cave”).
Millions of marine species still unknown
The world’s oceans are threatened in many ways by climate change, pollution, plastic waste and overfishing, explains Torben Riehl from the Senckenberg Research Institute and the Frankfurt Natural History Museum. Most of the estimated two million marine species are still unknown. Many marine animals become extinct before they can be discovered and named. Invertebrates are disproportionately affected.
A new initiative aims to counter this: “Ocean Species Discoveries”. This is a platform on which many species descriptions can be published in a short period of time in the future. The eleven newly described species are part of the first in a series of publications from the initiative.
Only named species can be included on the Red List in order to subsequently influence political decisions, explains marine researcher Julia Sigwart. “Ocean Species Discoveries” is coordinated by the Senckenberg Ocean Species Alliance (SOSA; Senckenberg Alliance for Marine Species), a project of the Senckenberg Research Institute and the Natural History Museum Frankfurt.
Source: Krone
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