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35-day expedition in Australia’s largest marine park revealed over 110 new species in the Coral Sea — including soft-bodied sharks, unknown rays, and creatures scientists call “ghost fish,” all hidden in waters no human had explored
About a thousand kilometers off the coast of Queensland, Australia, the ocean floor held a secret. Over 110 new marine species unknown to science were found at depths of 200 to 3,000 meters, in waters that had never been mapped by any expedition.
The announcement was made on April 1, 2026, by CSIRO, Australia’s national science agency, after months of analyzing samples collected in the Coral Sea Marine Park.
And the number could be even higher. According to researchers, ongoing genetic analyses are expected to reveal that the total number of new species exceeds 200.
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How Australia’s largest taxonomic expedition found new species in the Coral Sea
The research vessel RV Investigator, operated by CSIRO, departed from Brisbane in October 2025 for a 35-day mission.
The destination was Mellish Reef, a submerged formation approximately a thousand kilometers off the Australian coast.
The explored area is within the Coral Sea Marine Park, Australia’s largest marine protected area, spanning nearly 1 million square kilometers.
It’s an area larger than all of France.
Even so, the vast majority of these deep-water environments remained completely unexplored.
The expedition’s chief scientist, Dr. Will White, a shark expert at CSIRO, explained that the mission had a clear objective: “To deepen knowledge of the biodiversity of the region’s deep waters, for which there is very limited data.”
The soft-bodied shark and the fish that looks like a ghost
Among the most surprising discoveries are four new fish species personally identified by Dr. White:
- A deep-sea catshark (genus Apristurus), with a dark, flabby body
- A chimaera (genus Chimaera), known as a “ghost fish” for its translucent appearance
- Two unprecedented rays from the genera Dipturus and Urolophus, found on the Kenn Plateau
The catshark has a dark, flabby body — a typical adaptation for creatures living at depths where water pressure is hundreds of times greater than at the surface.
With a soft body and dark skin, it moves slowly across the ocean floor where sunlight simply doesn’t reach.
The chimaera, on the other hand, is known as a “ghost fish” for its translucent and ethereal appearance. Chimaeras are distant relatives of sharks and rays, but have evolved so differently that they look like creatures from another planet.
The two rays were found on the Kenn Plateau, a submerged region between Australia and New Caledonia that had never been explored by taxonomists.
Brittle stars, crabs, and unnamed creatures
The fish, however, are only part of the story.
Most of the new species found are invertebrates — animals without a backbone that live in deep reefs and on the ocean floor.
Dr. White described what he called “probably the largest taxonomic workshops for marine animals ever held in Australia.”
In these workshops, experts from various Australian cities identified new species of brittle stars, crabs, sea anemones, and sponges.
Many of these creatures are so different from any known species that taxonomists have not yet been able to name them.
The samples have been deposited in the CSIRO’s Australian National Fish Collection and in state museums, where they await genetic analysis.
Why identifying deep-sea species is so difficult
Dr. Claire Rowe, manager of the Australian Museum’s Marine Invertebrate Collection, explained one of the expedition’s biggest challenges.
“Many invertebrates, such as jellyfish, are difficult to identify solely by physical characteristics,” she said.
For this reason, the team collected tissue samples from hundreds of specimens for genetic testing.
It is precisely because of these pending analyses that scientists believe the final total could exceed 200 new species.
Species called “cryptic” — which appear identical to the naked eye but are genetically distinct — can only be differentiated in the laboratory.
This type of work can take months or even years to complete.
A global partnership to count what lives on the ocean floor
The expedition was not an isolated effort by Australia.
Species identification was carried out in partnership with the Ocean Census Science Network, an international initiative supported by the Nippon Foundation and the Nekton organization.
The network’s goal is to accelerate the discovery of marine species worldwide.
To date, scientists estimate that only a fraction of deep-ocean life has been cataloged.
Most of the ocean floor — which covers more than 60% of the planet’s surface — remains less explored than the surface of the Moon.
What this discovery means for marine conservation
The Coral Sea Marine Park was created precisely to protect ecosystems like these.
But it’s hard to protect what you don’t know.
Each new species cataloged helps environmental managers understand which areas are most sensitive and deserve additional protection.
Furthermore, deep-sea creatures often produce unique chemical compounds that may have applications in medicine and biotechnology.
A single unknown marine organism could hold the key to new antibiotics or cancer treatments.
However, the researchers themselves warn that the data is still preliminary.
The number of 110 species is an initial count based on morphology. Genetic confirmation could either increase the total or reveal that some samples belong to already known species.
Why the deep ocean still holds so many secrets
To get an idea of the scale, the area explored by the expedition is almost 1 million square kilometers.
That’s equivalent to the entire land area of France, Germany, and Spain combined.
And most of it had never been visited by scientific equipment.
The seabed at 3,000 meters deep is one of the planet’s most extreme environments. Water temperature approaches zero, pressure is 300 times greater than at the surface, and darkness is total.
Even so, life thrives there — and now we know in much greater variety than any model predicted.
If just 35 days of expedition revealed over 110 unknown species, the question remains: how many thousands are still waiting to be found in the rest of the oceans?
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