Snapshot: Marine marvels

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Credit: ALL IMAGES: G. CRANITCH/QUEENSLAND MUSEUM

Neil Bruce of the Museum of Tropical Queensland in Townsville, Australia, peers into a lit aquarium on Lizard Island Reef, part of the Great Barrier Reef off the east coast of Australia. The research trip, which also went to Ningaloo reef off the west coast, turned up hundreds of new species, including dozens of new crustaceans.

The expedition forms part of the Census of Marine Life. It included the first systematic survey of soft corals, discovering more than 100 that were previously unknown.

From top to bottom: Comb jelly (Ctenophore); green-banded snapping shrimp (Alpheus parvirostris); twisted nudibranch (Chromodoris elizabethina); Dendronephthya soft coral.

Box 1: Snapshot: Marine marvels

Credit: ALL IMAGES: G. CRANITCH/QUEENSLAND MUSEUM

Neil Bruce of the Museum of Tropical Queensland in Townsville, Australia, peers into a lit aquarium on Lizard Island Reef, part of the Great Barrier Reef off the east coast of Australia. The research trip, which also went to Ningaloo reef off the west coast, turned up hundreds of new species, including dozens of new crustaceans.

The expedition forms part of the Census of Marine Life. It included the first systematic survey of soft corals, discovering more than 100 that were previously unknown.

From top to bottom: Comb jelly (Ctenophore); green-banded snapping shrimp (Alpheus parvirostris); twisted nudibranch (Chromodoris elizabethina); Dendronephthya soft coral.