Creatures from the deep freeze
By FIONA MacRAE
Last updated at 11:39 26 February 2007
Video: Hidden for thousands of years, these colourful creatures have come to light because of the fastest-rising temperatures on Earth.
Found on the Antarctic seabed, they were concealed from the rest of the world by ice shelves hundreds of feet thick.
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The collapse of these shelves - caused by
global warming - has revealed the beauty of the inhabitants for the first time.
A ten week voyage by marine biologists led to the chronicling of 1,000 different species, including several new to science.
Among the potential new species are 15 new shrimplike crustaceans, giant barnacles, antarctic octopus, cold water-loving corals and ice fish, which, unlike most animals, do not have any red blood cells.
The ice shelves, which were up to 600 feet thick, covered an area the size of Jamaica in the Weddell Sea, off Western Antarctica.
Formed thousands of years ago, the ice shelves collapsed after temperatures rose by 2.5c in just 50 years.
Researcher Dr Gauthier Chapelle said: "This is virgin geography. If we don't find out what this area is like now, we won't have any basis to know in 20 years' time how global warming has altered the ecosystem."
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