An expedition into the deep waters off Chile and Peru surfaced with an extraordinary tally: more than 100 species that appear to be new to science, gathered from a chain of underwater mountains in the southeastern Pacific. Using robots capable of descending thousands of meters, researchers documented translucent squid, armored lobsters and a fish that seemed to walk across the seafloor on its fins. The haul offered a vivid snapshot of how much life still goes uncataloged in the deep ocean.
Robots over the Salas y Gomez and Nazca ridges
The survey targeted the Salas y Gomez and Nazca ridges, a vast submerged mountain system that stretches across the southeastern Pacific. Researchers deployed underwater robots capable of descending more than 4,500 meters, roughly 14,760 feet, to inspect and sample seamounts that had rarely or never been examined up close. Over the course of the monthlong effort the team explored 10 seamounts and covered an area comparable in size to a small country. The lead scientist described being stunned by the density of unfamiliar life, saying new creatures turned up every few meters in some areas, according to the expedition account.
More than 100 candidate new species
The headline figure, over 100 potential new species, reflects the sheer novelty of what the robots encountered. Among the standouts were cactus urchins, a group with only one previously known species; squat lobsters with spiky shells and beady eyes; and ancient corals likely dating back thousands of years. The team also recorded translucent glass squid and potentially 30 new species of sea sponges, some of them unusually colorful. One memorable observation was a bright red fish that used its fins like hands to move across the sea floor, a behavior that captures how strange deep-sea life can appear to surface observers.
Seamounts that act like isolated islands
Part of what makes the ridges so rich is that each underwater mountain functions almost like its own island ecosystem. Rotating currents carry cold water from the south and warmer water from the north, and the region receives high levels of nutrients. Those conditions favor highly specialized species that are finely tuned to life on individual seamounts, which helps explain why creatures living relatively close together on nearby ridges can be so distinct. The result is a patchwork of habitats, each potentially hosting animals found nowhere else, layered across the larger expedition documented by the operating research institute.
Corals doubling as nurseries
The expedition also highlighted how these deep communities connect to the broader ocean. Researchers reported seeing eggs on nearly every species of coral across numerous seamounts, indicating that some organism, likely a fish, depends on those corals to reproduce. Migratory animals such as tuna, sharks and sea turtles rely on seamount habitats to forage and to lay eggs, tying the fate of these remote structures to species that range widely across the Pacific. That interconnection raises a pointed question: if the corals were lost, what cascading effects might ripple outward through the food web that leans on them.
Why the ridges matter for high-seas protection
The scientific findings carry a conservation dimension. The underwater mountains run about 3,000 kilometers, longer than the Himalayas, and more than 70 percent of them lie outside any national jurisdiction in international waters known as the high seas. Their remoteness has shielded them from many human impacts, but looming threats from deep-sea mining, pollution and overfishing have raised concern. Advocates point to a United Nations high-seas treaty as a potential tool for creating new marine protected areas, and they argue the ridges deserve early consideration because they support some of the highest known concentrations of endemic species, a case made in peer-reviewed research on the region’s biodiversity.
Why the count is still provisional
The more than 100 figure comes with an important caveat: these are candidate species awaiting confirmation. Before any of them can be formally recognized as new to science, researchers must analyze the animals’ genes and compare them carefully against known species. That verification process can take considerable time, and some candidates may ultimately prove to be known animals or variations of them. Even so, the expedition demonstrated how productive targeted exploration of unstudied seamounts can be, and it added momentum to arguments that such biodiversity hotspots should be mapped and protected before industrial pressures reach them.
This article was produced with the assistance of AI and reviewed by Morning Overview editors prior to publication.
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