Several oceanic organizations are working together to more quickly describe new species through collaborative workshops, advanced imaging, and DNA analysis. “By coupling expeditions with species discovery workshops, we compress what often takes more than a decade into a faster pathway while maintaining scientific rigour by having world experts involved,” an independent expert said. Only 240,000 marine species, about 10% of ocean life, have been formally identified out of millions. Much deep sea footage shows species humans did not know existed; nor did the species know of humans. “Each confirmed species is a building block for conservation, biodiversity studies, and untold future scientific endeavours.” “Scientists are rushing to document ocean biodiversity before climate change, overfishing and other threats erase species we don’t even know about yet.”
