New Marine Species Pictures

This bizarre new copepod, Ceratonotus steiningeri, was first discovered 5,400 metres deep in the Angola Basin in 2006. Within a year it was also collected in the southeastern Atlantic, as well as some 13,000 kilometres away in the central Pacific Ocean. Scientists are puzzled about how this tiny (0.5mm) animal achieved such widespread distribution as they are about how it avoided detection for so long. 

The world's oceans may be vast and deep, but a decade-long count of marine animals finds sea life so interconnected that it seems to shrink the watery world. An international effort to create a Census of Marine Life was completed today with maps and three books, increasing the number of counted and validated species to 201,206. 

A decade ago the question of how many species are out there couldn't be answered. It also could have led to a lot of arguments among scientists. Some species were counted several or even dozens of times, said Jesse Ausubel of the Alfred Sloan Foundation, the co-founder of the effort that involved 2,700 scientists. The £411 million project got money and help from more than 600 groups, including various governments, private foundations, corporations, non-profits, universities, and even five high schools