Fish in Antarctic Waters

Posted by Douglas DuHamel Mar 22, 2008

Scientists in New Zealand’s Antarctic waters have made some very startling discoveries of new species. Included in these finds are abnormally large star fish at over two feet in diameter, jellyfish with 12 foot tentacles, very large sea slugs and up to 8 different mollusks.

“It’s always very exciting” says Chris Jones of the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. “All the fish people just go crazy. Not that they don’t have enough things to do like settle on one name per fish instead of three and four different names.”

The new finds still have to be reviewed by a board of experts, to determine if they really are new species. Other discoveries were also found in the Ross Sea such as, fields of sea lilies that stretched for hundreds of yards across the sea floor.

Some of which the researchers at the New Zealand Fisheries declare that no human eyes have seen. To date, only small scale research has ever been performed in the Ross Sea.

This in-depth survey was part of the International Polar Year task force involving 23 countries and 11 research voyages. Their aim was to benchmark global warming in the Antarctic.

So it looks like that there are many more new discoveries to be made in the world today of sea life animal and insect and plant life.