According to the researchers has used manned submarines to explore the world’s deepest underwater canyons and has collected the samples of new species of sponge which has never before seen and is unknown to science. They told that the sponge from Pribilof Canyon in the Bering Sea will be named Aaptos kanuux. George Pletnikoff, Greenpeace USA’s Alaska Office Oceans Campaigner, informed that the team ahs named this sponge ‘kanuux,’ after the Unungan word for “heart”.
He further said that these canyons are the heart of the Bering Sea, pumping out the nutrients that are the lifeblood of the entire ecosystem. As long as these canyons are at risk, so too will be the communities that have depended on these waters for thousands of years. Richard Page, an oceans campaigner for Greenpeace International, explained that very little is known about the seas around us and far less about the open oceans. This amazing discovery underscores the need for the UN to establish a global network of marine reserves and to stop the current free-for-all whereby habitats and species are being destroyed before scientists have even had a chance to give them names.
John Hocevar, senior oceans specialist with Greenpeace USA, opined that the discovery highlights how unique these canyons are and how little is known about the deep sea. He added that half of the 14 coral species and two-thirds of the 20 species of sponge that the researchers documented were previously unrecorded in the Bering Sea.
