New Zealand scientists have discovered giant sandhoppers in one of the deepest, darkest places on earth.
[image:4505:half:right]The National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA) and scientists from Aberdeen in Scotland found the crustaceans 7000 metres deep in the Kermadec trench, north of New Zealand.
Ashley Rowden, a principal scientist at NIWA, says the almost 30-centimetre-long sandhoppers are about 10 times bigger than normal making them biggest ever caught and the deepest ever found.
Dr Rowden says scientists are now trying to work out why these particular deep-sea amphipods evolved to be so large.
