An ongoing census of marine life has revealed just how little we know about the ocean depths. The $1 billion worldwide effort to catalogue all life within the oceans has thrown up hundreds of previously unknown species of fish, crustacean and octopus.
The world's first Census of Marine Life is a 10-year programme involving teams of scientists from 70 countries.
Last year its database held 1.1 million records and 25,000 marine species. At the close of 2004, it has assembled more than 5.2 million records mapping the distribution of 38,000 species from our oceans.
The census project was launched in 2000, and runs through 2010. It seeks to assess the diversity, distribution and abundance of ocean life.
It enabled the discovery of more than two new marine fish species a week during the past year, 106 fish that were previously unknown.
The census database now holds information on 15,482 fish species, a figure expected to grow to about 20,000 before the project ends.
The census holds information on 6,800 different species of zooplankton, microscopic animals that drift on ocean currents and form an essential lower rung on the food chain. New discoveries over the next six years are expected to double this figure.
The researchers are looking at all life forms, from microbes up to whales. The census indicates that a full 90 per cent of all ocean biomass is made up of microbes.
Hundreds of previously unknown species have been discovered. For example, a new species of Gobi fish was found off Guam in the Pacific Ocean. It has developed a partnership with a snapping shrimp, with the crustacean digging a hideout on the sea-bed for the two while the fish stands guard.
"We have barely skimmed the surface," said Dr J Frederick Grassle, of Rutgers University, New Jersey, who chairs the international scientific steering committee of the census.
More information on the census is available at http://www.coml.org
