50,000 Undiscovered New Zealanders Live In Our Sea

50,000 Undiscovered New Zealanders Live In Our Seas

Last night, some of New Zealand's leading marine scientists revealed they believe there are 50,000 New Zealand sea creatures yet to be discovered - including five - and six-meter whales.

Don Robertson, General Manager Biodiversity & Biosecurity,
NIWA at the launch event of WWF-New Zealand's new
online guide to the Treasures of the Sea.

The revelations came from NIWA and Te Papa marine scientists at an event held by WWF-New Zealand at Te Papa for the launch its new online guide to life in New Zealand's oceans - The Treasures of the Sea: Ng* Taonga a Tangaroa at www.wwf.org.nz/treasuresofthesea. The new online resource is a species-group based guide to the 15,000 species that have already been discovered in New Zealand's marine environment - from albatross to zooplankton.

Speaking at the WWF event, NIWA's Dr Don Robertson said that The Treasures of the Sea showed that we have much to learn about the globally significant biodiversity of New Zealand waters:

"We know we have around 15,000 species both described or curated but undescribed. Dr Dennis Gordon (of NIWA) has estimated that there are possibly around 50,000 more marine species waiting to be discovered and described. And of these 15,000, around 40% appear to be endemic to the New Zealand region, either described or known. Almost all of our knowledge of the New Zealand marine life comes from the shallower fringes of what is the most typical habitat on the planet, the 4000 m deep abyssal ocean plains. And oceans around New Zealand go a lot deeper - down to 11 km deep in the Kermadec Trench."

Te Papa's whale expert and marine mammal collection manager Anton van Helden said it was highly likely the 50,000 unknown inhabitants of New Zealand oceans includes species of whales that humans have yet to discover:

"Let me put it this way, we have a beaked whale here in New Zealand, the spade toothed whale, and we only know of its existence from two beach-worn skulls and a lower jaw bone with two tusk teeth. No one has ever seen a spade toothed whale alive. So it's likely that there are whales swimming in New Zealand waters that have yet to be discovered. And of those that are known to science, our knowledge is often based on such a small number of samples that we still are just scratching the surface in terms of understanding those we know exist.

"I think the remarkable thing is these are animals are 5-6m long that have to come to the surface of the ocean to breathe and yet some we have never seen alive. These are not microscopic animals living on the ocean floor...If you think how little we do not know about the big things, then clearly there are a lot of other species out there to be discovered."

At the launch, WWF-New Zealand reiterated its call for a national network of marine protected areas. Commenting today, Chris Howe, Executive Director at WWF-New Zealand said: "It's inspiring that we still have so much to discover about New Zealand's amazing and unique ocean life. It brings home just how critical it is to protect what we have here in New Zealand - not just for those creatures like Maui's dolphin which we know human activity is pushing to the brink of extinction, but also to act as guardians for those creatures we have yet to discover."

The Treasures of the Sea: Ng* Taonga a Tangaroa is a species-group by species-group guide to New Zealand's marine life - from the bizarre feeding habits of the straptoothed whale, to the divorce rate of (usually) monogamous albatross. The leading marine scientists on New Zealand's biodiversity have pooled their knowledge to create the new online resource, which was edited by NIWA Prinicipal Scientist Dr Alison MacDiarmid.

The new microsite at www.wwf.org.nz/treasuresofthesea goes live on Friday 29 June, after an official preview launch event at Te Papa on Thursday 28 June for the marine science community of New Zealand. At the event, WWF-New Zealand reiterated its call for a national network of marine reserves, which the global conservation organisation says is vital to protecting New Zealand's unique marine biodiversity, much of which is under threat from human activity.

New Zealand's ocean is a globally significant hotspot of marine biodiversity and home to some of the world's weirdest sea creatures - from the world's largest spiny lobster to the strap-toothed whale, which is believed to catch its prey using suction. Nearly half (44 per cent) of New Zealand marine life exists nowhere else on the blue planet but here in Aotearoa - and new species are being discovered all the time. But until WWF-New Zealand commissioned NIWA to create The Treasures of the Sea, the scientific information wasn't easily accessible. www.wwf.org.nz/treasuresofthesea gives free and instant access to what is known about the treasures of our seas.

ENDS

Notes to editors: background information

* Over 80 per cent of New Zealand's biodiversity is in the oceans.

* Forty-four per cent of life in our oceans is endemic (unique) to New Zealand.

* Endemic species you may recognised include Hector's dolphin and the yellow-eyed penguin which live here and nowhere else in the world

* Did you know that New Zealand also has one of the richest faunas of lace coral - or bryozoans - in the world, with some 948 species. Overall, 62% of lace corals are endemic to the New Zealand region.

* This level of endemism comes from millions of years of isolation and complex seascapes created by volcanic activity give a variety of marine habitats.

* There are 65,000 known and unknown species in New Zealand's marine ecoregion. New Zealand's oceans are home to some of the world's extremes of marine life. Here are some highlights taken from The Treasures of the
Sea:

* New Zealand is home to the Packhorse rock lobster: the world's largest, found along the north-eastern coast of the North Island and weighing up to 20kg (regular crays weigh up to 4kg)

* Over half (54 per cent) of the world's 24 albatross species breed in New Zealand - and of the 12 species breeding in the region, half breed only in New Zealand.

* The Chatham albatross's breeding habits take this to another level - the only place in the world this species breeds is one isolated rock stack (The Pyramid) in the Chatham Islands.

* The sooty shearwater is similarly attached New Zealand. Each year these seabirds undertake an extraordinary post-breeding migration across the entire Pacific Ocean in a huge figure-eight pattern while travelling 64,037 km roundtrip. Each shearwater makes a prolonged stopover in one of three discrete regions off Japan, Alaska, or California before returning to New Zealand through a relatively narrow corridor in the central Pacific Ocean.

* Sea turtles that live in New Zealand's oceans, of the order Testudinata, are believed to have lived on the Earth for 250 million years, before the time of the dinosaurs.

* New Zealand's Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) boasts the second deepest part of the Earth's abyssal ocean - in the Kermadec Trench, just to the east of the Kermadec Islands northeast of mainland New Zealand. Its fauna is almost completely unknown. Overseas specialists estimate that perhaps another 250 cnidarian (coral) species remain to be discovered in New Zealand's exclusive economic zone.

* New Zealand is also one of only two places worldwide where you can find tiny white maggot like slugs of the genus Smeagal that live "Gollum like" deeply buried in the dark, damp spaces in high tide gravel beds.

* Feeding is an issue in New Zealand's bizarre strap-toothed whales. While juveniles and females are effectively toothless, in adult males, two huge lower teeth grow over the upper jaw and severely limit the mouth opening. They presumably capture most of their prey, largely squid, by suction.

* New Zealand also has the worlds only nemertean worm that lacks a proboscis or evertable feeding organ - about as outrageous as a horse with no legs.

* Our sea daisies - a sister group to the seastars - have taken things even further for they have no mouth, guts or anus. It is assumed they get their food by absorbing nutrients from decomposing logs of wood in the deep sea.

* The Department of Conservation lists the endemic subspecies of little penguin, the white-flippered penguin, Eudyptula minor albosignata, as "nationally vulnerable", because of a human-induced population decline of up to 70% between the years 1980 and 1993.

* The total world population of the eastern subspecies of the rockhopper penguin, Eudyptes chrysocome filholi, has undergone a 50% reduction since 1940 and a greater than 90% reduction has been documented at some New Zealand colonies.

* Populations of leatherback turtles have declined drastically worldwide, with an estimated 95% decline throughout its range since the 1980s. The Pacific leatherback populations appear to be crashing, where monitored populations from 1985 to 1995 have dropped between 6500 animals to less than 500. The world population of leatherback turtles is believed to be between 30,000 and 40,000 individuals.

* Maui's dolphin, the world's rarest marine dolphin lives only in New Zealand and is on the verge of extinction.

* WWF-New Zealand campaigns to protect New Zealand's marine wildlife and envisions a future where all species are abundant within their natural range. For more information, go to www.wwf.org.nz

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