Scientific types have decided it was finally time to take to the depths of the ocean on a quest to see just what might be down there. They couldn’t have imagined what they were to find. These guys went to a place called the Celebes Sea, this is a part of the western Pacific Ocean, and went down about 3 miles. They found perhaps dozens of new life forms, new species, to classify. This classification could take years but scientists from the Philippines and the U.S. are excited at the possibilities.
Remember a few years ago there was this animated film about a fish called Nemo? Well, they found a fish that looks as though it could be a cousin of the famous little guy. I know about what are called Sea Cucumbers but they don’t really look like vegetables. There is a critter that actually looks like a Cucumber. There are worm like creatures that have tentacles growing out of their heads. Keep in mind that the living critters in this area may have been isolated for millions of years.
The region of the Celebes Sea, which includes the Philippines, Malaysia and Indonesia, is known to have the highest species diversity of shallow water marine animals, perhaps the deeper sea regions have a similar diversity but they are still trying to find out definitively.
Astoundingly, the remotely operated vehicles that the science types have sent down were able to capture not only still photos but high definition video. Cameras have been baited so that larger organisms might come by for a free meal and hopefully a smile for the camera.
It’s going to take scientific folks a while to examine all the creatures, there are as many as 100 possible new species, but they expect to make history. However, the researchers claim they are not done. They believe the area hold the promise of finding many more new creatures and that is something that could take years of study. Patience is a virtue and no more so than in science or at least good science.
Once they have learned all that they can from the Celebes Sea they plan to compare that information with other deep sea areas. That will determine if this region is in fact as diverse as and more diverse in species than they already believe.
They have also found a great abundance of truly odd things in the depths of the Celebes Sea. These are things that scientists were both shocked and dismayed to find. These are things that the researchers had wished that they had never seen for it’s something that they truly fear because they hold the potential to, at some point, kill off some or perhaps all of the other critters floating around down there. They found piles and piles of human garbage that had sunk to the bottom. Now if that isn’t enough to scare a biologist I don’t know what is.
Since humans have been doing that to the waters of the earth for thousands of years then maybe those water creatures have evolved and adapted into being critters who can now only survive with garbage, who knows?
