Four of the animals found during a deep-sea expedition to the Cocos Islands.
Museums Victoria/Ben Healley
Scientists explored the recesses of the ocean floor off the Cocos (Keeling) Islands near Australia.
They found a host of bizarre sea creatures, from the tribute spiderfish to the bony-eared assfish.
One animal, a blind eel that gives birth to live young, had never been seen before.
Scientists exploring the floor of the deep sea around the Cocos (Keeling) Islands in the Indian Ocean found a landscape teeming with deep sea life, some of which had never been seen before.
Here are some of the bizarre animals they found, in pictures.
Museums Victoria-Ben Healley
The eel, found about three miles below the surface, is new to science.
Fish usually lay eggs that grow on rock faces or the sea bed. But, unusually, this fish’s babies grow inside its belly and it gives birth to live young, per the press release.
This fish was found about three miles below the surface.
Museums Victoria
The highfin lizard fish is a voracious hunters of the deep sea, with its clear translucent skin characteristic of deep-sea animals that don’t see the light of day.
These fish set themselves apart by being hermaphrodites, meaning they have both male and female reproductive tissue.
Robert French/Museums Victoria
Also known by the scientific name Acanthonus armatus, this eel also goes by bony-eared assfish.
You can see a video of the fish in action here.
Museums Victoria-Ben Healley
Congers are eels that tend to pop up from the seabed like grasses.
Museums Victoria-Ben Healley
Like many other deep-sea animals, the batfish uses light to lure its prey in the dark of the ocean.
This fish’s luminescent lure is on its snout.
Museums Victoria-Ben Healley
The loosejaw gets its name from its impressive lower jaw and is another fish that uses light as bait.
Here, the luminescent organs, called photophores, are right beneath the fish’s eyes and light up blue and red.
You can see the photophores in action here.
Museums Victoria
Sloane’s viperfish, with its massive fangs, also lights up when it wants to, using a set of photophores that line its whole body.
You can see a video of the fish here.
Museums Victoria-Ben Healley
The tribute spiderfish’s fins are hardened, allowing it to prop itself up on the seabed like a tripod.
That’s the perfect height for catching shrimp drifting past on the current.
Robert French/Museums Victoria
The fangfish is a vicious predator.
Like many other deep-sea predators, it lurks in the near darkness of the deep sea during the day, then rises to shallower waters to hunt at night, in a process known as diel migration.
Nish Nizar/Museums Victoria
Not all animals at the bottom of the sea floor are colorless. Scientists also found these bright red starfish on their expedition.
Robert French/Museums Victoria
This squat lobster is another example of the brightly-colored animals dotting the floor of the deep sea.
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These animals were captured as part of a research mission by Australia’s national science agency CSIRO.
In September 2022, the Investigator, a research vessel, set off to explore the seabed around the Cocos (Keeling) Islands, an Australian territory made up of 27 islands in the Indian Ocean.
Located more than 600 miles from the nearest landmass, very little is known about the sea life around these islands.
“There’s still parts of the world that are completely unknown,” Tim O’Hara, chief scientist on the expedition and Senior Curator of Marine Invertebrates at Museums Victoria, said.
CSIRO
During the mission, the Investigator surveyed the landscape under the Cocos (Keeling) Islands. This revealed huge mountains made by ancient volcanos.
These can be 43 miles across and three miles high, O’Hara said. That’s about as tall as Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania.
“They’re massive,” he added.