Scientists find new species during deep dive into an abyss off Australia’s east coast

SCIENTISTS scouring a huge abyss off Australia’s east coast have returned from their new frontier with a menagerie of newly discovered or rare deep ocean creatures, including faceless fish, zombie worms and a herd of sea pigs.

Perhaps a third of the marine invertebrates and some of the weird fish and luminescent creatures found during the 31-day voyage by CSIRO research ship Investigator are believed to be completely new to science.

Plucked from the dark, crushing depths of up to four kilometres in the mysterious abyss stretching from Launceston to Brisbane, the Museums Victoria-led CSIRO and NESP Marine Biodiversity Hub research team has chronicled species including:

COFFINFISH with a rodlike stem on its head topped with fluffy bait to catch prey;

GIANT anemone-sucking sea spiders, whose body simplicity is a “tube within a tube” and are among the oldest arthropods on Earth;-read more