Paul Satchell/The Nippon Foundation/Nekton Ocean Census/Schmidt Ocean Institute
If you think this picture looks a bit like a feather pen, then you’d be correct. Except it’s not the type that you can write with.
Sea pens are a type of coral that live on the sea floor and are made up of several specialised polyps. This particular sea pen is new to science, and was discovered at a depth of 805 metres on Mystery Ridge off the South Sandwich Islands, a chain of islands in the South Atlantic Ocean. It was found thanks to the Nippon Foundation-Nekton Ocean Census, a global programme aiming to discover 100,000 new marine species over the next decade.
The Mystery Ridge sea pen is one of more than 1000 new species that were discovered by the census across a total of 13 expeditions in 2025 and 2026.
The sea pen is now undergoing genetic testing to determine its evolutionary lineage.
