Scientists Find 178 New Species in Oceans

[ladmin]

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Marine scientists say they have discovered 178 new species
of fish and hundreds more new species of plants and other animals in the past
year, raising the number of life-forms found in the world's oceans to about
230,000.
Discoveries being made public Tuesday include a gold-speckled and red-striped
goby fish, found in Guam's waters, that somehow lives in partnership with a
snapping shrimp at its tail. While the goby stands sentinel, the shrimps digs a
burrow that both use for shelter.
Another surprise for biologists was a colony of rhodoliths, a coral-like
marine algae, found in Prince William Sound in Alaska. The hard, red plants,
which resemble toy jacks, roll like tumbleweeds in the beds used as nurseries by
shrimp and scallops.
Those in charge of the Census of Marine Life, now four years into a planned
10-year count, say the rate of discovery shows no sign of slowing, even in
European and other waters heavily studied in the past. Some 1,000 scientists in
70 countries are now participating, up from 300 scientists in 53 countries just
a year earlier.
"In general, the smaller the animals are in the ocean, the more poorly known
they are," J. Frederick Grassle, chairman of the project's scientific steering
committee and director of Rutgers University's Institute of Marine & Coastal
Sciences, said Monday.
This is the second consecutive year in which scientists have reported
findings since the project began in May 2000. The part of the census dealing
with microbes, the smallest organisms, is just starting.
Once that part is done, scientists believe they will find that the oceans
extending across 70 percent of the earth's surface hold 20,000 species of fish
and up to 1.98 million species of animals and plants, many of them small, basic
life-forms like worms and jellyfish.
Studying the genomes, or genetic codes, of the species will "lead to the past history, the past evolution of life in the oceans, which goes back way before the fossil record three-and-a-half billion years," Grassle said.
So far, scientists have described 15,482 marine fish species, up from 15,304
a year ago. The number of animals and plants is up to about 214,500, several
hundred more than last year, but scientists say they do not have an exact number for that.