“U.S. and Philippine scientists may have discovered new marine species in the world’s most biologically diverse region, their expedition leader said Tuesday.”
“This is probably the center where many of the species evolved and spread to other parts of the ocean, so it’s going back to the source in many ways,” he told a group of journalists, government officials, students and U.S. Ambassador Kristie Kenney and her staff.
Madin said they had collected about 100 different specimens, including several possibly newly discovered species. One was a sea cucumber that is nearly transparent which could swim by bending its elongated body. Another was an unusually black jellyfish that was found near the bottom of the sea. But the most striking creature they found was a spiny orange-colored worm that had 10 tentacles like a squid, he said.
Madin said the Celebes Sea, being surrounded by islands and shallow reefs, is partially isolated from the rest of the world’s oceans and may have been more isolated millions of years ago, leading scientists to believe that “there may be groups of organisms that have been contained and kept within” the basin since then.
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