MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA-- As part of a pioneering mission called Sampling the Abyss, headed by Australia's Museums Victoria and the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO), an international team of 40 scientists and support staff made a surprising discovery in an unexplored habitat deep beneath the ocean surface.
The month-long mission ending on June 16 will involve 40 scientists studying marine life in depths of up to 13,000 feet.
In one of these voyages so far, they found a "faceless fish", a bizarre creature only recorded once before, by scientists on board the HMS Challenger, a research vessel that visited the waters off Papua New Guinea in 1873.
The faceless cusk in question, with the scientific name Typhlonus nasus, was caught in the Jervis Bay Commonwealth Marine Reserve off New South Wales at depths of 13,000 feet.