"Ross Sea search begins to find new species"

[songhrati]

From page A14 of the 13 December edition of the Wellington Dominion Post (New Zealand):

A $5 million international Antarctica biodiversity project is likely to lead to the discovery of some unknown marine species.

The project, named Ross Sea 2004, aims to increase understanding of the biodiversity in seas of the frozen continent.

Fisheries Ministry science manager Jacqui Burgess said the project would help the management of the human activities in the region, especially fishing for the Antartic toothfish. Because much of the area below the Ross Sea had not been closely surveyed, the project was highly likely to discover species that were new to the region and to science.

Ross Sea 2004, a joint venture with the Italian Antarctic programme, starts next month. The research vessel Tangaroa with 11 scientists on board - three of them Italians - will spend six weeks investigating the biodiversity of invertebrates on the seafloor.

Data obtained from the project would be passed to the secretariat of the Convention on the Conversation of the Antarctic Marine Living Resources, the international body that develops rules for fishing in Antarctic waters.

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I would presume that one of the creatures they will be searching for is the Colossal Squid, which evidence suggests makes its home in the waters of Antarctica.

Zane W.

 

[Mighty_Emperor]

I would presume that one of the creatures they will be searching for is the Colossal Squid, which evidence suggests makes its home in the waters of Antarctica.

Well I'm not sure they are going to be able to get one of those but I did dig out some links and drop this into Tonmo:

http://www.tonmo.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=1651

and it seems they are looking forward to some interesting cephalopod finds (Steve O'Shea is a leading Giant and Colossal Squid expert).

Emps

 

[songhrati]

I interviewed Dr O'Shea recently & he suggested that as colossal squids were likely to be found in the Antarctic region he hoped that a project like this one would be successful in finding conclusive evidence of a colossal squid (although he did not specifically refer to the Ross Sea 2004 project).

Incidentally, Dr O'Shea mentioned that on average one new species of squid is discovered in NZ waters per month and one new species of octopus is discovered in NZ waters every two months.

Zane W

 

[Anonymous]

that Colossal Squid looks vicious! I wonder if they have more pictures of it floating around the internet

 

[Mighty_Emperor]

that Colossal Squid looks vicious! I wonder if they have more pictures of it floating around the internet

Well there are some great pictures of a live giant squid in this thread:

http://www.forteantimes.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=4662

if you wanted pictures of the Colossal Squid then the simplest thing would be to check through the previous threads at Tonmo as Steve O'Shea will have posted the pictures he has there (also look in the articles section as there is goo stuff in there).

Emps

 

[Anome]

that Colossal Squid looks vicious! I wonder if they have more pictures of it floating around the internet

Parsing Error! Squid don't float around the internet, they float around the ocean.

 

[Anonymous]

Parsing Error! Squid don't float around the internet, they float around the ocean.

they only float around the ocean when they are dead

 

[Anome]

Go back and re-read the recent articles on Giant, Colossal, and other Squid species.

Some of them do just drift around, posing little threat to shipping.

 

[Mighty_Emperor]

Ooooooooooooo some good reports coming out already - great headlines:

Murky depths reveal vampire sex rituals

23.03.2004



SYDNEY - Group sex, vampirism and bizarre species have been uncovered in the murky depths of the Tasman Sea.

For a month last year, National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (Niwa) research ship Tangaroa trawled the waters in a joint New Zealand-Australia study, hauling in from 2km down weird and well-armed creatures inhabiting undersea mountains whose few dry peaks include Norfolk and Lord Howe islands.

Funded by Australia's National Oceans Office, and involving scientists, Government agencies, museums and universities in both countries, the expedition caught 500 fish species and 1300 species of invertebrate now being studied by more than 50 researchers worldwide.

The Sydney Morning Herald newspaper reported yesterday that about 100 are new species.

"The diversity down there is incredibly rich," said Peter Last, a scientist at the Commonwealth Science and Industrial Research Organisation.

"Animals got stuck there and have turned into new species."

Dr Mark Norman, a senior curator at Museum Victoria, named the deep-sea angler fish, with its bizarre sex life, as one of the most unusual inhabitants.

"The female is the size of a tennis ball. It has big savage teeth, little nasty pin eyes ... and a rod lure off the top of its head with a glowing tip to coax in stupid prey."

The male "looks like a black jellybean with fins".

When a male finds a female, he bites into her side, never letting go.

"He drinks her blood, in return for giving her sperm," Dr Norman said.

The flesh of the two fish eventually fuses and they remain connected permanently.

"It's sexual vampirism, with a bit of dwarfism thrown in. They have found females with up to six males attached."

Other fish have tongues covered in teeth, or hinged teeth to facilitate huge meals.

The Pacific spookfish uses its long snout "like a metal detector" to scan for the electrical impulses of prey buried in the mud.

The dumbo octopus has a pair of flaps to help it glide through the water, making it "look like the cartoon character Dumbo the Flying Elephant".

Dr Norman was also fond of the fangtooth, "one of the most savage-looking of all the deep-sea fishes".

Two sharp teeth poking out of its bottom jaw slide into pockets in its head, saving the fish from stabbing itself in the brain.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/storydisplay.cfm?storyID=3556328&thesection=news&thesubsection=world

and:

Monsters from the deep with the sex lives of vampires

By Kathy Marks in Sydney

23 March 2004

Scientists from Australia and New Zealand have identified more than 100 new species of fish in the waters that divide the two countries.

The Tangaroa, a deep-sea research ship, probed the Tasman Sea for four weeks last year, snaring 500 species of fish and 1,300 species of invertebrates. The 24 researchers also found the fossilised tooth of a megalodon, an extinct shark that was twice the size of the great white shark.

The project, funded by Australia's National Oceans Office and New Zealand's Ministry of Fisheries, uncovered weird and wonderful sea dwellers, including fish with tongues covered in teeth and fish with hinged teeth that enable them to swallow large meals. Another creature, the Pacific spookfish, uses its long snout like a metal detector to search out the electrical impulses of prey concealed in the seabed.

Among the species hauled in from more than a mile beneath the waves was the dumbo octopus, which navigates through the water with the help of a pair of flaps. According to Dr Mark Norman, a senior curator at Museum Victoria, it looks like "the cartoon character Dumbo the flying elephant".

One of the most curious discoveries made by the scientists concerned the mating habits of the deep sea angler fish. Dr Norman described the female as being the size of a tennis ball, with "big savage teeth, little nasty pin eyes ... and a rod lure off the top of her head with a glowing tip to coax in stupid prey", while the male looked like "a black jellybean with fins".

During copulation, the male bites the female and hangs on. "He drinks her blood in return for giving her sperm," Dr Norman told The Sydney Morning Herald newspaper. The flesh of the two fish then fuses together and they remain permanently connected. "It's like sexual vampirism," Dr Norman said. "We found females with up to six males attached."

Scientists from 11 research organisations took part in what is the first detailed survey of the deep-sea life around the submerged mountains of the northern Tasman Sea. Dr Norman said that more than 100 of the fish and invertebrate species discovered were either unrecognised or new to science. Others had been spotted only a few times in the past.

In one cup of sand, scientists found 250 species of tiny snails. They found giant sea spiders, which bear little resemblance to land spiders, having such small bodies that some of their organs are situated in their legs.

They were also intrigued by the fangtooth, which has two sharp teeth that poke out of its bottom jaw and slide into pockets in its head.

Among the new species identified was a deep-water batfish that walks along the ocean bed. Dr Norman said: "Their fins are almost modified into legs, and the head comes to a point like a unicorn. It's pretty weird."

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/australasia/story.jsp?story=504102

I'll drop the links into that TONMO thread I mentioned above.

[edit: Oooops these are results from another expidition last year and not the Ross Sea ones - the confusion snekaed in as it is the same research vessel. Still interesting but the Ross Sea reulsts could be better than this and it i a good haul.]

Emps

 

[Mighty_Emperor]

Anyway despite going slightly off topic this link from the fornt page has another report with soem pictures of the unusal creatures found in the previous survey:

http://smh.com.au/articles/2004/03/21/1079823237850.html

Emps