OXFORD, United Kingdom, Oct. 12 (World Daily Times) — Researchers identified 57 marine species and five proposed new genera from deep-sea samples associated with Argentina’s submarine canyons, Ocean Census and the Schmidt Ocean Institute announced. The result is a set of workshop identifications spanning several groups of animals, from small crustaceans to corals and sea cucumbers.
The Nippon Foundation-Nekton Ocean Census led the two-week Species Discovery Workshop in partnership with the Schmidt Ocean Institute. According to the organizers, 20 taxonomists and early-career researchers from Latin America and Europe gathered at Universidad Maimónides in Buenos Aires from July 13–24, 2026.
Taxonomists specialize in identifying, describing and classifying living things. Their work helps establish whether a specimen belongs to a known species or represents something new to science.
What did the researchers identify?
The organizers divided the 57 species into four groups: 20 copepods, 22 echinoderms, 14 cnidarians and one scaphopod mollusc.
Copepods are small crustaceans. The echinoderms identified at the workshop included sea cucumbers and crinoids, while the cnidarians included octocorals, sea pens and stony corals. Scaphopods are molluscs commonly known as tusk shells.
The five proposed new genera span corals, sea cucumbers and crustaceans, the organizers said. A genus is a classification level above species: it groups related species together. The five genera are therefore a separate classification result, not five additional species to add to the total of 57.
The announcement describes these animals as new to science. That means newly recognized through scientific identification, not newly evolved or newly arrived in the canyon.
Where did the samples come from?
Most of the samples came from the Schmidt Ocean Institute’s Underwater Oases of the Mar del Plata Canyon expedition off Argentina, according to the organizers. The expedition ran from July 23 to August 10, 2025, a year before the workshop.
The institute operated the expedition aboard its research vessel, Falkor (too), using SuBastian, a remotely operated vehicle. Such vehicles allow researchers to investigate underwater environments without sending people down with the equipment.
Ocean Census also said the workshop would examine marine life collected during the Talud Continental I–III expeditions in 2012 and 2013. Those earlier expeditions were led by CONICET, Argentina’s National Scientific and Technical Research Council.
The collection and identification stages thus took place at different times: specimens gathered at sea were later brought together for specialist examination in Buenos Aires.
How were the animals examined?
The organizers said the researchers used integrated taxonomy, an approach that combines different kinds of evidence to identify and classify organisms. They logged their discoveries on Ocean Census NOVA, which the organization describes as an open-access platform for newly discovered marine species.
Tech Times reported that workshop researchers carried out morphological examination, high-resolution imaging and targeted DNA barcoding in parallel. Morphological examination compares physical features. DNA barcoding uses selected stretches of genetic material to help distinguish organisms.
Tech Times also reported that all 20 copepods examined from a single harpacticoid collection were considered new species. It said that collection represented 10% of the returned samples and that 90% of the copepod material remained unexamined. Those proportions describe the outlet’s account of the copepod work, rather than the organizers’ overall 57-species breakdown.
Who brought the specialist knowledge?
Ocean Census identified researchers with expertise in the different animal groups under examination.
For cnidarians, the participants included Daniel Lauretta, a Museo Argentino de Ciencias Naturales–CONICET researcher, and Ralf Cordeiro, a Universidade Federal Rural de Pernambuco researcher, both focusing on octocorals. Pablo López-González, a Universidad de Sevilla researcher, focused on sea pens, while Marcelo Kitahara, a University of São Paulo researcher, focused on stony corals.
The echinoderm specialists included Francisco Solís-Marín, a Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México researcher focusing on sea cucumbers, and Leonardo Chacón, a UC-EAP Instituto Monteverde researcher focusing on crinoids.
Leonardo Santos de Souza, a Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul researcher, specialized in scaphopod molluscs. Nancy Mercado Salas, a Leibniz Institute for the Analysis of Biodiversity Change researcher, specialized in copepods.
Seven Seas Media reported that CONICET identified Martín Brogger and Valeria Teso as the workshop’s local coordinators.
Why bring researchers together?
“Discovering 57 new species and five new genera in just two weeks demonstrates the speed and power of collaborative taxonomy,” said Michelle Taylor, Ocean Census head of science, in a statement quoted by People.
Ocean Census, whose founding partners are The Nippon Foundation and Nekton, also described the workshop as an opportunity to share taxonomic expertise and build research capacity for early-career scientists.
