Japan’s Deep Ocean Reveals Dozens of New Species from Landmark 2025 Nippon Foundation–Nekton Ocean Census – JAMSTEC Expedition
by Ocean Census
March 10, 2026
Japan has led a major international effort to explore and document new life in the deep ocean. Following the Nippon Foundation–Nekton Ocean Census Expedition in June 2025, partnering with the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology (JAMSTEC), scientists have confirmed the discovery of 38 new species and identified 28 further potential new species across two of Japan’s most understudied deep-sea regions: the Nankai Trough and the Shichiyo Seamount Chain.
The June 2025 expedition, conducted aboard JAMSTEC’s research vessel Yokosuka and supported by the famous Shinkai 6500 manned submersible collected >528 specimens, all catalogued, imaged, and preserved for future morphological and molecular analyses. In October 2025, taxonomists from Japan and around the world convened at JAMSTEC Headquarters (Yokosuka, Japan) for a dedicated Species Discovery Workshop, confirming the status of these new and potentially new species and coordinating next steps for the publication of scientific papers.
Among these discoveries are two breakthrough studies: a comprehensive survey in the journal Ecosphere, led by JAMSTEC researcher Dr Chong Chen, revealing a five-fold increase in biodiversity at Nankai Trough cold seeps, and research in The Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society led by Dr. Naoto Jimi, which demonstrates the remarkable evolutionary history of symbiotic sponge-dwelling worms, which have evolved to live ‘in a glass castle’.
Read the Ecosphere paper: https://esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ecs2.70451