ANTARTICA:Giant sea creatures, including sea spiders the size of dinner plates and jellyfish with six-metre (20ft) tentacles, have been found by Australian scientists in the deep waters around Antarctica.
Huge worms and giant crustaceans have been filmed during an expedition which trawled the floor of the Southern Ocean almost 1.5km (one mile) below the surface. Many could not be identified and are to be sent to laboratories, possibly to be classed as newly discovered species.
Martin Riddle, leader on the research vessel Aurora Australis, said yesterday: "Some of the video footage is really stunning. Gigantism is very common in Antarctic waters. Many [ of the animals] live in the dark and have large eyes. They are strange-looking fish. In some places, every inch of the sea floor is covered in life."
The voyage was part of an international effort to chronicle sea life in the icy ocean and monitor the impact of global warming and other environmental changes on Antarctic waters.
The expedition's three ships - the Aurora Australis, France's L'Astrolabe, and Japan's Umitaka Maru - returned to Australia last month with decks full of sea creatures. Experts believe the species will help them analyse how rising atmospheric carbon dioxide levels make the oceans more acidic, a factor scientists predict will make it harder for marine organisms to sustain their calcium carbonate skeletons.
Some of the sea life was only filmed because it was too fragile to remove.