Treasure trove of new species in Antarctica

PARIS: The lightless depths of the Antarctic's Southern Ocean harbor a unexpectedly diverse 'treasure trove' of marine life, including more than 700 previously unknown species, according to a study.

A series of expeditions over three years collected samples of fauna living up to six kilometres below the surface of the Weddell Sea, a poorly understood region that supplies much of the deep water circulating in the world's oceans.

Angelika Brandt, a marine biologist at the Zoological Museum of Hamburg and lead author of the study, said the consortium of international researchers were greatly surprise by what they found.

"We were astonished by the number of new species, and expected to find the same patterns" of low biodiversity reported in the oceans around the North Pole, she said.

Most of the new life forms discovered were isopods, a vast order of crustaceans ranging in size from microscopic to nearly 30 centimetres long.

Of 674 species cataloged, more than 80 per cent had never been previously identified. The expeditions also turned up 160 species of snail-like gastropods and bivalves, along with 76 types of sponges, 17 of them new to science.

"What was once thought to be a featureless abyss is in fact a dynamic, variable and biologically rich environment," said Katrin Linse, one of 21 co-authors of the study, published in the British journal 'Nature', released on Wednesday.