Argentina's Deep-Sea Canyon Yields 57 New Species

A two-week workshop confirmed 57 new species and five new genera from Argentina's Mar del Plata Canyon, including a sea cucumber nicknamed Loki.

Scientists have confirmed 57 new marine species and five new genera from Argentina's Mar del Plata Submarine Canyon, announced by the Nippon Foundation-Nekton Ocean Census in partnership with the Schmidt Ocean Institute and CONICET. The tally was finalized at a Species Discovery Workshop held at Universidad Maimónides in Buenos Aires from 13-24 July 2026, where 20 taxonomists and early-career researchers from Latin America and Europe examined specimens collected during the 2025 Continental Slope IV expedition. DIVE Magazine and Noticias Ambientales both report the species count, which grew from a preliminary estimate of around 40 as the workshop progressed.

The star of the haul is a translucent deep-sea sea cucumber, Peniagone sp., nicknamed 'Loki the Sea Cucumber' for its horn-like appendages evoking the Norse god. According to DIVE Magazine, it was recorded by ROV at a depth of 2,577 meters in the canyon, and it is one of up to 10 new sea cucumber species identified during the workshop.

The 57 species divide into 20 copepods — tiny crustaceans central to marine food webs — 22 echinoderms including sea cucumbers and crinoids, 14 cnidarians such as octocorals, sea pens and stony corals, and one scaphopod, or tusk-shell mollusc. The five new genera span corals, sea cucumbers and crustaceans. Notable corals include the sea pen Pseudumbellula sp. and the orange-red octocoral Orstomisis sp., which data on habitat-generating deep-sea ecosystems, and DIVE Magazine reports two potential new coral genera and a possible new family await genetic analysis.

Confirming dozens of species usually takes years, but the workshop model compressed the process into roughly two weeks. The Times of India reports that taxonomists examined just 10% of the collected copepod samples — and that every copepod specimen examined belonged to a species new to science, per Ocean Census. Scientists used integrative taxonomy techniques, and confirmed species were recorded directly in Ocean Census NOVA, the world's first open-access platform for newly discovered marine species. 'The discovery of 57 new species and five new genera in such a short time demonstrates the speed and power of collaborative taxonomy,' Ocean Census head of science Dr Michelle Taylor said.

The specimens came from the 21-day Continental Slope IV campaign in August 2025 aboard the research vessel Falkor (too), whose ROV SuBastian dived to 3,900 meters. The expedition's live stream reached 4 million people with nearly 22 million views, according to Noticias Ambientales, making Argentina's deep sea a public spectacle. Beyond the species count, the processed specimens will be permanently housed in national institutional collections such as the Museo Argentino de Ciencias Naturales, and chief scientist Daniel Lauretta of CONICET stressed the workshop built capacity among Latin American early-career taxonomists in groups with few active specialists.

The South Atlantic exploration is far from over. Noticias Ambientales reports CONICET's Deep Sea Studies Group (GEMPA) and the Schmidt Ocean Institute are planning Continental Slope V for February and March 2027, again live-streamed, targeting the little-explored Ameghino and Almirante Brown canyons off Chubut, about 600 kilometers from the coast, a region with high biodiversity potential and Vulnerable Marine Ecosystems. Nineteen scientists from Argentine institutions, mostly CONICET, will join researchers from national universities and the Argentine Naval Prefecture.