Molluscs unknown to science found in the Pacific Ocean

Scientists from the National Scientific Center for Marine Biology of the Far Eastern Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, together with their German colleagues, have discovered previously unknown mollusks in the northern part of the Pacific Ocean.

The press office of the Russian Ministry of Education and Science notes that scientists discovered these mollusks in the Bering Sea and the Aleutian Trench at depths of between 3,000 and 4,000 meters.

"We discovered three species of the genus Axinulus in the studied area, one of which is new to science. The two species, Axinulus krylovae and Axinulus oliveri, were first observed in the eastern Pacific Ocean. The new species, discovered in the Bering Sea on the oceanic slopes of the Aleutian Islands at depths of 3,646–4,630 meters, has been named Axinulus pentagonalis sp. nov. The main distinguishing feature of this species is the presence of a unique carving on its shell," said Gennady Kamenev, a senior researcher at the institute.

The Aleutian Trench is the longest ocean trench, stretching 4,000 kilometers from the Commander Islands to the eastern Aleutian Islands, with a maximum depth of 7,822 meters. The international scientific team obtained new information about deep-sea fauna in the Bering Sea and the Aleutian Trench during the AleutBio expedition in the summer of 2022 aboard the German research vessel Sonne. The findings were published, summarized, in the journal Progress in Oceanography.

According to a statement from the media office, scientists were able to find 82 species of mollusks during this expedition, 42 of which are known, while the rest are unknown to science and are under study.

These findings indicate that deep ocean trenches do not pose a natural obstacle to the spread of most deep-sea mollusk species found in the North Pacific Ocean.