Over 1,000 new ocean fish species identified
Newly-identified species include 122 new sharks and rays
Over 1,000 new ocean fish species have been identified in the past eight years, according to scientists completing a catalogue of all known ocean life.
Among fish species, the newly-identified species include 122 new sharks and rays, 131 new members of the goby family, and a new barracuda which was discovered in the Mediterranean.
All are contained in the World Register of Marine Species (WoRMS), a landmark international effort to unite all existing knowledge of sea life.
Merging scores of databases, WoRMS editors have found almost 419,000 species named in literature worldwide. However, 45 per cent of these were shown to be duplicates. Just one species of sea snail had 113 different names.
WoRMS editors have put the number of species known to science at more than 228,000. Of these, around 86 per cent are sea animals, including just over 18,000 species of fish, more than 1,800 sea stars, 816 squids, 93 whales and dolphins, and 8,900 clams and other bivalves. The remainder are seaweeds, kelp and other plants, viruses, bacteria, fungi and single cell organisms.
Jan Mees, WoRMS co-chair, said: "Though a few relatively minor gaps remain, we consider the register now virtually complete with respect to species described throughout scientific history. And, of course, we are constantly updating with newly-described species, revisions of taxonomy, and adding occasional species that have been overlooked.”
Dr. Mees adds that there are an estimated 10,000 or more new-to-science species in laboratory jars around the world waiting to be described.
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