The newly discovered Ceratonotus Steiningeri copepod.
The first global picture of life in the oceans was released this week. Some 2,700 scientists spent 9,000 days at sea to compile the Census of Marine Life, and they admit they have only scratched the surface of oceanic diversity.
In all, some 250,000 marine plant and animal species have now been formally described, out of the 1 million thought to exist.
"There are three to four unknown species for every known," says Paul Snelgrove of Memorial University of Newfoundland in St John's, Canada.
The Census has so far added 1,200 new species to the tally, though that is likely to rise as over 5,000 more organisms that were collected have yet to be studied or named. The new species include several that were thought to have disappeared, such as the "Jurassic shrimp” thought to have died out 50 million years ago.
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