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An astonishing array of wildlife has been unexpectedly found in one of the world's most hostile environments - the pitch-black, freezing extreme depths of the Southern Ocean surrounding Antarctica.
More than 700 creatures completely new to science, ranging from crustaceans and molluscs to carnivorous sponges and free-swimming worms, have been discovered on a series of expeditions exploring the deep waters of the Weddell Sea.
No fewer than 585 new species of crustacean - the family that contains crabs and lobsters at its larger end - were brought to light during three sampling expeditions set up as part of the Antarctic Benthic Deep-Sea Biodiversity Project, carried out by an international team including British scientists, based on the German polar research ship Itals Polarstern Offitals, between 2002 and 2005.
The results, reported this week in the journal Itals Nature Offitals, throw much new light on a largely unstudied place, and challenge previous preconceptions that life in the Southern Ocean's extreme depths is unlikely to be particularly plentiful.
"What was once thought to be a featureless abyss is in fact a dynamic, variable and biologically rich environment," said Dr Katrin Linse, a marine biologist from the British Antarctic Survey who took part on the expeditions. "Finding this extraordinary treasure trove of marine life is our first step to understanding the complex relationships between the deep ocean and distribution of marine life."
The expedition leader, Professor Angelika Brandt from the Zoological Institute and Zoological Museum at the University Hamburg, said that the Antarctic deep sea was potentially the cradle of life of the global marine species.
"We now have a better understanding in the evolution of the marine species and how they can adapt to changes in climate and environments," she said.
During their three voyages, Brandt and her colleagues - an international team from 14 research organisations - investigated the seafloor landscape, its continental slope rise, and changing water depths, to build a picture of life in this little known region of the ocean.
They collected biological specimens and environmental data from depths between 774m to 6348m under the surface of the Weddell Sea and adjacent areas.
The deep sea is classified as depths below 1000 metres.
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