In June 2026, an international team of scientists spent two weeks aboard the Schmidt Ocean Institute's research vessel Falkor (too), exploring the tropical South Atlantic off the coast of Brazil. By the time they returned to port, they had confirmed 31 species entirely new to science — a process that would normally take years, condensed into a single expedition.
31 species new to science, confirmed in just two weeks at sea — a process that normally takes years.
The speed came down to what was on board. Rather than relying solely on preserved specimens shipped back to a lab for years of comparison, the team brought the lab to sea: DeepPIV and EyeRIS imaging systems from MBARI, a shadowgraph camera from Japan's JAMSTEC, a virtual reality chamber from the University of Western Australia, and two purpose-built microscopes from Stanford University — a "gravity machine" and a squid confocal microscope — alongside onboard genetic sequencing. Between the imaging and the DNA work, species that once took a decade to formally describe could be confirmed within days.
Nine Jellyfish, Seven Comb Jellies, and More
The find, led by John Burns of Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences and Karen Osborn of the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, with David Fields of Bigelow also on the expedition, turned up a striking cross-section of open-ocean life: nine species of jellyfish, seven siphonophores, seven ctenophores (comb jellies), four larvaceans, two giant rhizarians, one gossamer worm, and one amphipod. "The ocean never let up with surprises in every pocket of water that we explored," Burns said.
None of it required going especially deep or especially far from shore — just the right instruments pointed at water that, until now, nobody had looked at quite this closely.
Read the full original reporting at Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences →
Image credit: R/V Falkor (too), Schmidt Ocean Institute's research vessel