A sample of the deep ocean (which is as inaccessible to humans as outer-space) has revealed hundreds of new species.

“Astonishingly high and unexpected” – that’s how Angelika Brandt from the Zoological Museum Hamburg, Germany, describes levels of biodiversity she and colleagues have discovered in the depths of the Southern Ocean.

The ANDEEP (Antarctic benthic deep-sea biodiversity) project, sampling down to 6348 metres, discovered 585 new species of crustacean.

Echoing former US defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld, the Census of Marine Life has produced “KUU” assessments on what is known, unknown, or unknowable. “The number of species out there are certainly unknowable, due to the fact that many are rare and that the Southern Ocean deep sea is vast,” Brandt says.

Some of the life forms look bizarre (to my eyes).

There is so much we don’t know about what is in the deep ocean. Apparently there are also mammoth, prehistoric undersea creatures living in the darkness of the deep ocean.