20,000 New Species of Ocean Life Discovered

20,000 New Species of Ocean Life Discovered

After an entire decade of collecting data, the world finally issued its first ocean census last year, and the results are nothing short of amazing. Estimates of known species went up from 230,000 to 250,000, indicating that at least 20,000 species we didn’t know about before have been discovered. (Of course, researchers still maintain that there are hundreds of thousands of species—even millions—that we still have yet to catalog at all.)

According to the scientists who participated, new species were found all over the planet—even in spots we thought we had explored fully and already known well. Some of the most notable findings include a six and a half pound lobster (located in Madagascar) and various deep sea animals, including fish, squid, and octopus.

While these findings were incredible, perhaps the most important findings that scientists made in this ten year period were many new observations about species behavior—as well as how humans are impacting these species and their habitat right now. For example, where overfishing was thought to be the biggest human impact in the ocean, now scientists believe that both ocean warming and acidification, both attributed to human actions, will post bigger threats in the scheme of things—if not now, then soon.

In fact, damages are already taking their toll. Some researchers say that many species were either too depleted or gone entirely before they were even able to be studied. So who knows how many species may have existed that we simply wiped out, without even knowing it?