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Deep-dwelling ocean life is stunning. And biologists keep finding more.
During a recently completed 18-day expedition in the protected Ashmore Reef Marine Park (off of Australia), scientists aboard a Schmidt Ocean Institute exploration vessel dropped an underwater robot into deep, low-light depths. At some 165 to 500 feet down (50-150 meters), it observed otherworldly corals, sea snakes, and a diversity of sea creatures, shown in the eight images below.
"Experiences like [this] are humbling and make me realize just how much more there is still to learn about our oceans."
The Schmidt Ocean Institute, a non-profit ocean research organization, called the trip the "Australian Mesophotic Coral Expedition." (Mesophotic means dark zones with low light.)
"Having studied corals from the Great Barrier Reef to Antarctica, it is easy to think I have seen it all," the expedition's lead scientist, Karen Miller of the Australian Institute of Marine Science, wrote in a blog post. "But experiences like the Australian Mesophotic Coral Expedition are humbling and make me realize just how much more there is still to learn about our oceans."
The expedition captured never-before-seen footage of the Ashmore Reef's seabed, and also collected 500 specimens to study, the institute said.
Deep sea waters are largely unexplored places, brimming with unknowns. "We know so little about the deep ocean that pretty much anyone can find something new if they were doing something unique down there," Alan Leonardi, the director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Office of Ocean Exploration and Research, told Mashable in December 2020.
A vivid Gorgonian fan coral.Credit: Schmidt Ocean Institute
A species of benthic ctenophore on the seafloor.Credit: Schmidt Ocean Institute
A sea snake swimming through the Ashmore Reef.Credit: schmidt ocean institute
A bright hard coral.Credit: schmidt ocean institute
A purple sea star in a lush Halimeda seabed.Credit: schmidt ocean institute
A coral species (Cupressopathes) on the seafloor.Credit: Schmidt Ocean institute
A nautilus swims past the expedition's underwater robot.Credit: schmidt ocean institute