Census finds giant bacteria and oysters From behemoth bacteria
to oversized oysters, snapshots of life within the earth's
oceans continue to amaze scientists about how little we know
about it. "The biggest habitat on the planet is our oceans,"
says Dr Ian Poiner, chair of the International Scientific
Steering Committee of the Census of Marine Life. "It's a huge
area that we virtually know nothing about." The US$650-million
census aims to discover "what's lived there, what lives there
now and what will live there [in the future]," says Poiner, who
is also chief executive officer of the Australian Institute of
Marine Science. The most recent census report details a range of
new ocean communities and unusual organisms, including colossal
sea stars from the Antarctic to the world's deepest hot vents
4100 metres beneath the surface of the Atlantic Ocean. Also
detailed are dense clusters of 20-centimetre long oysters deep
off the coast of France, a new shallow-water kelp species near
Alaska, and bacteria off the co