South Africa Counts More Than a Thousand New Sea Species in National Inventory

South Africa's species count has grown by more than a thousand, after a new national inventory of the country's seafloor life added over one thousand invertebrate species to the official record.

The additions range widely across marine life, covering everything from tiny crustaceans to deep sea worms. The species were catalogued with museum specimens and genetic tools, bringing the work of identifying and recording seafloor life together into one national inventory for the country. In the inventory as presented, the newly added species are invertebrates, and the examples given stretch from the very small to deep sea species.

For the first time, every group in the inventory comes with a permanent, openly accessible species list that any researcher can cite. That means each group covered by the inventory now has a shared list that is openly accessible, permanent, and available as a reference for researchers working in the field. The scientists presented that permanent list as a first for the inventory, covering every group included in it rather than only part of the record.

The scientists behind the inventory say the true number of marine species in South African waters is almost certainly well above fourteen thousand. They say many more species are still waiting to be found, and that some of them are already sitting unrecognized in museum drawers, held in collections without yet being identified as new additions to the record.

The team is also open about the gaps that remain. Entire branches of marine life in the region still have no active specialists studying them, a gap the scientists noted directly. That, they say, is what makes a shared, permanent baseline like this one important, because it is the foundation that everything else in the field gets built on.

From the October 14 episode of The World Briefing Room.