800-Plus Marine Species Discovered Within 2 Years
Scientists have discovered an astounding number of new marine species in the last 16 months — 866 to be exact.
The Nippon Foundation-Nekton Ocean Census,composed of more than 800 scientists from more than 400 institutions,announced the discoveries last month. The census is the world’s largest collaborative effort to accelerate the discovery of marine life.
Typically,the identification and registration of a single new species can take more than 13 years,and sometimes,species can go extinct before they are fully documented. That’s why The Nippon Foundation and Nekton launched the Ocean Census in April 2023,seeing it as imperative to speed up the documentation process as climate change and other factors push more and more species to the brink of extinction.
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“The purpose of Ocean Census is to accelerate the discovery of ocean life,for many reasons,but not least because ocean life makes all life on Earth possible,” Oliver Steeds,director of Ocean Census told www.weathernow24.com.
The census has recorded new species of shark,sea butterfly,bamboo coral,water bear,crab,lobster and more within recent months. The new species span dozens of taxonomic groups.
In their efforts,the teams have employed divers,submersibles and remotely operated vehicles to study species at depths beyond 16,000 feet,and as shallow as just a couple feet. And while some of the newly discovered species have been collected within the timeframe of Ocean Census’ creation,other collections have been sitting on museum or institute shelves for years,without the resources to be classified or identified.
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“We’ve come to this extraordinary point where the most important part of our planet,the superpower that makes all life possible is also the least known part of our entire planet and also the least protected,” Steed shared.
He hopes that humans will be amazed and humbled by the ocean and its creatures,and from there we can begin to learn more about the mysteries of the sea.
Ocean Census hopes to discover exponentially more species in the years to come.
“So what I'm looking to do is double what we've done in this year into the next year and keep going as best we can,and that's the exponential growth that the ocean and the planet needs us to achieve,” Steed said.
