Deep sea treasures: Hundreds of new species found at Great Barrier Reef

Hundreds of new marine animal species, including colourful soft corals, crustaceans and worms, have been discovered on reefs off the Australian coast.

The wealth of finds, at Lizard and Heron islands on the Great Barrier Reef, and Ningaloo Reef in north-western Australia, surprised researchers taking part in the global Census of Marine Life (CoML).

A green banded snapping shrimp (top) and Comb Jellyfish were two of the new species discovered off Heron Island

Far from being cut off from humanity, the sites harbouring the new species are well known to divers.



About half the soft coral species catalogued were thought to be new to science.



Researchers also found dozens of crustacean species, possibly representing more than one family of animals, that were previously unknown.



They included new species of shrimp-like tanaids, some with claws longer than their bodies.



Up to 60 per cent of tiny amphipod crustaceans, the insects of the marine world, were not currently described.



Other major finds included many potentially new 'bristle worms', relatives of leeches and earth worms. Up to two-thirds of those found at Lizard Island alone were thought to belong to new species.

Dendronepthya soft coral (l) and a Nardoa Rosea sea star (r) were found in the warm waters off Australia's north-western coast



Census of Marine Life chief scientist Dr Ron O'Dor, from Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, said: 'Amazingly colourful corals and fishes on reefs have long dazzled divers, but our eyes are just opening to the astonishing richness of other life forms in these habitats.

'Hundreds of thousands of forms of life remain to be discovered.'



The scientists left behind plastic structures described as 'empty dolls houses' to provide homes for marine animals at Lizard and Heron islands.

Creatures that move into the Autonomous Reef Monitoring Structures (ARMS) will be studied over the next three years.



Dr Julian Caley, from the Australian Institute of Marine Science in Townsville, Queensland, and co-leader of the CoML CReefs project, said: 'We were all surprised and excited to find such a large variety of marine life never before described.



'Compared to what we don't know, our knowledge of marine life is a proverbial drop in the ocean. Inventorying the vast diversity and abundance of life across all ocean realms challenges both science and the imagination.'