Loki and 57 Strangers: The Deep-Sea Canyon That Keeps Giving Up New Life

More than two and a half kilometres below the surface of the South Atlantic, in water where sunlight never arrives, a pale, translucent animal moves slowly across the mud. It has soft, horn-like appendages, and the scientists who filmed it gave it a fitting nickname: Loki, after the horned figure of Norse legend. Loki is not alone down there. In a single submarine canyon off the coast of Argentina, researchers have now identified 57 species and five genera believed to be new to science — and they have barely begun to look.

This is a story about a place most of us will never visit, a robot that became a television star, and a two-week meeting in Buenos Aires that turned jars of deep-sea specimens into one of the richest hauls of new life in recent years. It is also a reminder of how much of our own planet remains unmapped, unnamed and, increasingly, under pressure.

A canyon below the waves

The Mar del Plata Submarine Canyon is a vast valley cut into the ocean floor off Argentina, described as nearly twice as deep as the Grand Canyon. Its steep walls and cold, dark slopes create a world of strong currents, soft sediments and hard surfaces where very different animals can live side by side. Until recently, much of it had never been explored in detail.

That changed in August 2025, when the Schmidt Ocean Institute’s research vessel Falkor (too) sent its remotely operated vehicle, SuBastian, down into the canyon. The dives were streamed live, and more than four million people watched. Many came for a plump orange sea star that looked strikingly like Patrick Star from the cartoon SpongeBob SquarePants. Patrick, it turns out, was not a new species at all — scientists left him undisturbed on the seafloor, unaware of his fame. The canyon he lives in, however, was hiding dozens of animals science had never described.

Two weeks, twenty taxonomists, fifty-seven species

Seeing a strange animal on camera is only the beginning. To know whether it is genuinely new, specialists must compare its anatomy — and increasingly its DNA — with every similar species already described. That work usually takes years, and specimens can sit in jars waiting for one of the world’s few experts in their group.

In July 2026, the Nippon Foundation-Nekton Ocean Census tried a different approach. It brought 20 taxonomists and early-career researchers from Latin America and Europe together at the Universidad Maimónides in Buenos Aires from 13 to 24 July 2026, working in partnership with the Schmidt Ocean Institute, Argentina’s National Scientific and Technical Research Council (CONICET) and the Museo Argentino de Ciencias Naturales. Side by side, they compared specimens, notes and DNA in real time, logging their discoveries directly onto Ocean Census NOVA, an open-access platform for newly discovered marine species.

The tally was striking: 57 species and five genera new to science. The breakdown shows just how varied the canyon’s life is — 20 new species of copepods, tiny crustaceans; 22 echinoderms, including sea cucumbers and crinoids; 14 cnidarians, including octocorals, sea pens and stony corals; and one scaphopod, a mollusc that lives in a tusk-shaped shell.

Meet Loki

The standout find was Loki the sea cucumber, scientifically listed as Peniagone sp., recorded at a depth of 2,577 metres. Its horn-like appendages reminded researchers of the Norse god, and it is one of up to 10 new sea cucumber species identified during the workshop. In the darkness and crushing pressure of the deep sea, animals evolve shapes that can look almost unreal to surface eyes: translucent bodies, delicate feeding arms and structures built for life on soft mud rather than solid ground.

Loki was not the only surprise. The coral discoveries include two potential new genera and a potential new family, still awaiting genetic analysis. Among the featured specimens were the sea pen Pseudumbellula sp. and an orange-red octocoral, Orstomisis sp., recorded at 1,954 metres. Each of these animals is a small piece of a much larger puzzle: how life survives, feeds and reproduces in an environment without sunlight, where food arrives mostly as a slow rain of particles from above.

Why every copepod was new

Perhaps the most telling detail concerns the smallest animals of all. Copepods are tiny crustaceans that form a base of marine food webs, and they are among the most abundant animals on Earth. Taxonomists examined just 10 per cent of the collected copepod samples from the canyon — and every specimen they examined belonged to a species new to science, yielding 20 new species and one new genus.

That result says something profound about our baseline knowledge. If nine-tenths of one group’s samples remain unexamined, and everything examined so far is new, then 57 is almost certainly not the final number. Researchers involved in the work have said the possibility of further new species from the remaining samples is relatively high. A follow-up expedition to another canyon is planned for early 2027.

As Ocean Census head of science Dr Michelle Taylor put it: “Discovering 57 new species and five genera in just two weeks demonstrates the speed and power of collaborative taxonomy.” She added: “The deep sea holds some of the least understood ecosystems on Earth.”

The quiet warning in the same canyon

There is a second, sobering thread to this story. In the same underwater landscape where scientists are meeting unfamiliar forms of life, they have also documented plastic waste, discarded fishing equipment and other evidence of human activity. The deep sea is often imagined as remote and untouched. The Mar del Plata Canyon shows that it is neither — not anymore.

That is why the workshop’s approach matters beyond the thrill of discovery. Specimens processed during the workshop will be housed in Argentina’s national collections, including the Museo Argentino de Ciencias Naturales in Buenos Aires, and confirmed discoveries are being added to the open-access Ocean Census NOVA database, where researchers anywhere in the world can consult them. Naming what lives in a place is the first step towards protecting it: you cannot defend a species, or argue for care over a habitat, if you do not yet know it exists.

Dr Daniel Lauretta, principal investigator at CONICET, stressed the value of working together across borders: “International cooperation in taxonomy is critical, especially in groups with few active specialists.” The workshop, he said, accelerated identification, recognised species new to science and built capacity among local early-career taxonomists working on deep-sea fauna.

What happens next

Most of the 57 species are still at the “identified as new” stage: formal scientific descriptions, the detailed published accounts that give a species its official name, still lie ahead for most of them, and that process can take years. That is normal in taxonomy, not a weakness in the find. What the workshop proved is that the bottleneck is not a lack of life to discover — it is a lack of hands, time and coordination to describe it.

For the public, the canyon’s story began with a viral sea star. For science, it continues in museum drawers, DNA laboratories and the next expedition. Loki and his 56 fellow strangers are a reminder that exploration is not finished, that the map of life on Earth still has blank spaces, and that some of the most extraordinary neighbours we have live in darkness, two and a half kilometres down, waiting — patiently — for a name.

FAKTA

• 57 species and five genera believed to be new to science were identified from Argentina’s Mar del Plata Submarine Canyon.
• The identification took place at a Species Discovery Workshop at Universidad Maimónides, Buenos Aires, from 13 to 24 July 2026, with 20 taxonomists and early-career researchers from Latin America and Europe.
• The workshop was led by the Nippon Foundation-Nekton Ocean Census with the Schmidt Ocean Institute, together with CONICET and the Museo Argentino de Ciencias Naturales.
• Most specimens came from the Schmidt Ocean Institute’s August 2025 expedition aboard Falkor (too), using the remotely operated vehicle SuBastian; the livestream drew more than four million viewers.
• The tally: 20 copepod species, 22 echinoderms, 14 cnidarians and one scaphopod mollusc.
• Loki the sea cucumber (Peniagone sp.) was recorded at 2,577 metres and is one of up to 10 new sea cucumber species; taxonomists examined only 10 per cent of the copepod samples, and every specimen examined was new to science.
• Specimens will be housed in Argentina’s national collections, and discoveries are logged on the open-access Ocean Census NOVA platform; a follow-up expedition is planned for early 2027.

Conclusion

The Mar del Plata Canyon gave the world a viral sea star, a horned sea cucumber named Loki and 57 reasons to look more carefully at the deep ocean. The canyon’s real lesson, though, is simpler: we are still discovering our own planet, one jar, one dive and one two-week workshop at a time — and the life we find there deserves to be known before it is lost.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Loki the sea cucumber?

Loki is the nickname given to a pale deep-sea sea cucumber, listed as Peniagone sp., recorded at 2,577 metres in the Mar del Plata Canyon. It was named for its horn-like appendages, reminiscent of the Norse god Loki.

How many new species were found in the canyon?

Researchers identified 57 species and five genera believed to be new to science: 20 copepods, 22 echinoderms, 14 cnidarians and one scaphopod mollusc.

Was Patrick the sea star a new species?

No. The orange sea star that went viral during the 2025 livestream was not thought to be a new species, and scientists left it undisturbed on the seafloor.

Why were so many species found so quickly?

Because 20 specialists worked together for two weeks in Buenos Aires, comparing specimens and DNA in real time, instead of working separately over many years. Even so, most copepod samples remain unexamined, so more new species are likely.

Sources: Nippon Foundation-Nekton Ocean Census and Schmidt Ocean Institute announcements, as reported by the UN Ocean Decade and DIVE Magazine. Read more on Watan News: https://watannews.dk/en/news/loki-deep-sea-argentina-canyon/