A whopping 62 species reported as new from the Coral Sea Marine Park

Reef Builders Alumni and master ichthyologist, Yi Kai, has teamed up with a star studded team and as Kai put it “combined five years worth of ROV and BRUV video footage with specimen based exploration and museum vouchers in an effort to characterise the deep-reef ichthyofauna of the Coral Sea Marine Park”. In layman’s terms, they’ve analyzed work from multiple different institutions/groups to identify 62 new records of fishes. Of the 62, 45 are new for Australia, 4 are new records for the Southern Hemisphere, and 21 species are potentially completely new to science!

Coloured symbols correspond to survey methods conducted at respective sites. Pink octagon: RV Falkor ‘Visioning the Coral Sea Marine Park’ FK200429 expedition; Purple circle: RV Falkor ‘Seamounts, Canyons and Reefs of the Coral Sea’ FK200802 expedition; Green square: James Cook University Reef Health Monitoring Survey; Orange triangle: closed-circuit rebreather mesophotic surveys; Yellow star: aquarium fish specimens

Surprisingly, the fish biodiversity of the Coral Sea remains largely unknown. This area includes Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, New Caledonia, and the Tasman Sea. Due to its massive size and varying architecture and immense depths, it’s difficult to explore. ROVs and BRUVs have helped make great strides in deep exploration and the Schmidt Ocean Institute and James Cook University have played an integral role in this department.

Check out some of the amazing fish in the paper. Full link to the paper below.

*Pristigenys meyeri, ROV image taken at 216 m, Tregrosse Reefs, Coral Sea, Australia. Photograph courtesy of the Schmidt Ocean Institute*

*Pyronotanthias parvirostris, AMS I.51385-001, 39.1 mm SL, freshly dead specimen from 46 m, Flora Reef, Coral Sea, Australia. Photograph by Fenton Walsh*

*Terelabrus rubrovittatus, AMS I.51456–005, 85.0 mm SL, freshly dead specimen from 140 m, Holmes Reef, Coral Sea, Australia. Photograph by Yi-Kai Tea*

Read the whole paper here (it’s free and open access). It’s loaded with more amazing photographs and info.

Raj Shingadia

Raj brings 20 years-plus of industry experience in aquarium maintenance, fabrication, design, and implementation as well as industrial sales and marketing leadership skills. He is most well known for his aquarium life support equipment and exhibits manufacturing company, MRC. But, he's been in the hobby and other parts of the industry for over 30 years.