Giant marine life found in antarctic waters

Scientists who conducted the most comprehensive survey to date of New Zealand's Antarctic waters were surprised by the size of some specimens found, including jellyfish with 12-foot tentacles and 2-foot-wide starfish.

A 2,000-mile journey through the Ross Sea that ended Thursday has also potentially turned up several new species, including as many as eight new mollusks.

It's "exciting when you come across a new species," said Chris Jones, a fisheries scientist at the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. "All the fish people go nuts about that — but you have to take it with a grain of salt"...

--MSNBC

Ancient Coelacanth Caught in Indonesia

An Indonesian fisherman hooked a rare coelacanth, a species once thought as extinct as dinosaurs, and briefly kept the "living fossil" alive in a quarantined pool.

Justinus Lahama caught the four-foot, 110-pound fish early Saturday off Sulawesi island near Bunaken National Marine Park, which has some of the highest marine biodiversity in the world.

The fish died 17 hours later, an extraordinary survival time, marine biologist Lucky Lumingas said Sunday.

"The fish should have died within two hours because this species only lives in deep, cold-sea environment," he said. Lumingas works at the local Sam Ratulangi University, which plans to study the carcass...

--ABC News

90 year old 60-lb. rockfish caught in Alaska

A commercial fishing boat hauled in what may have been one of the oldest creatures in Alaska -- a giant rockfish estimated to be about a century old.

The 44-inch, 60-pound female shortraker rockfish was caught last month by the catcher-processor Kodiak Enterprise as it trawled for pollock 2,100 feet below the surface, south of the Pribilof Islands in the Bering Sea.

The Seattle-based vessel, owned by Trident Seafoods, pulled up an estimated 75 tons of pollock and 10 bright-orange rockfish.

Scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration at the Alaska Fisheries Science Center in Seattle measured, photographed and documented the fish. They removed an ear bone, the otolith, which contains growth rings similar to rings in the trunks of trees.

They estimate the rockfish was 90 to 115 years old...

--CNN