Sea voyage finds starfish as big as serving platters and giant sea-spiders

In March 2008, scientists on board a special ship called the research vessel Tangaroa finished an exciting survey of marine life in the Ross Sea region around Antarctica. The 26 scientists and 18 crew worked around the clock for 35 days in the perpetual daylight of the Antarctic summer and managed to document around 30,000 species from tiny micro-plankton to giant blue whales.

Some of the animals they discovered had never been seen before by man. Fish experts onboard recorded 88 fish species, eight of which are likely to be new species never before recorded. Many of the fish look bizarre and have special adaptations to deal with the extreme polar and deep-sea environments they live in. Other super-sized animals they found included starfish as big as a serving dish, large sea-spiders, jellyfish with tentacles up to four metres long and hydroids (relatives of corals) three to four times larger than specimens previously seen in the Ross Sea.

Some unusual squid species were also caught, including young colossal squid. It is thought these squid can grow to over 14 metres - longer than two buses parked end-to-end.

The scientists and crew travelled some 2000 miles from Wellington in New Zealand to the Ross Sea, on the way they took samples of plankton and water so they can examine differences between the ocean around New Zealand and the southern polar waters.

Latest camera technology allowed scientists to see many communities on the sea-floor for the first time. The scientists were able to record new information about the behaviour, interrelationships and distribution of these sea-floor dwellers and their habitats.

Despite the exciting discoveries, life wasn’t always easy for the people on board the Tangaroa. Although they had 24 hour daylight they also had to endure some of the worst storms ever recorded, with temperatures down to minus 13°C and blizzard conditions that caused equipment to ice up and samples of seawater, mud and fish to freeze on deck.

The voyage was a collaboration between Land Information New Zealand (LINZ), Ministry of Fisheries (MFish), the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA), Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Antarctica New Zealand, New Zealand universities and both the Italian and United States Antarctic Programmes.