NEW SPECIES DISCOVERED!

Exotic creatures found in ‘coral triangle’

Expedition to diverse sea may have turned up new species, scientists say

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Celebrities of the Celebes Sea See the strange creatures found during a scientific expedition to the Celebes Sea in the southern Philippines.

By Oliver Teves

Updated: 12:51 p.m. ET Oct 16, 2007

MANILA, Philippines - U.S. and Philippine scientists may have discovered new marine species in the world's most biologically diverse region, their expedition leader said Tuesday.

Larry Madin, who led the Inner Space Speciation Project in the Celebes Sea south of the Philippines, said scientists had been to one of the world's deep-ocean basins in search of organisms that may have been isolated there for millions of years.

Madin, of the Massachusetts-based Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, or WHOI, said the Celebes Sea is at the heart of the "coral triangle" bordered by the Philippines, Malaysia and Indonesia — a region recognized by scientists as having the greatest degree of biological diversity of the coral reef community of fish and other marine life.

In the last year numerous new species have been discovered at the previously unexplored depths of the oceans. It is kind of amazing when you think about it, 70% of the earth is covered with water, and only now are we starting to really explore the depths, whereas we have been involved in space exploration for over 50 years. Read the rest of the article above here.