Huge icefish colony discovered near Antarctica

Researchers looking at the Antarctic sea floor, have discovered a vast and completely unprecedented colony of ice fish. Consisting of as much as 60 million individual nests, they were spread out over an area of the floor similar to the size of London.

Before this discovery, the biggest colony contained just 60 nests. This area was first looked at, because a natural upwelling of water from the depths, means that the temperature here is usually about 2 degrees above the surrounding area. It is thought that the Wendell sea (where this colony was discovered) is likely to have an ecosystem that relies in some way on these fish.

It is astounding to find such a large thriving species in the wild, and shows that there is still we know very little about.

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