Marine scientists have discovered hundreds of new animal species living on coral reefs off the coast of Australia.
The new species include shrimp-like animals with claws longer than their bodies and a tongue-eating isopod parasite which lives in the mouths of fishes.
The ABC reports the research is part of a 10-year Global Census of Marine Life which will produce a list of the world's ocean creatures.
The three expeditions to Lizard and Heron islands on the Great Barrier Reed, and Ningaloo Reef off Western Australia, included a first systematic scientific inventory of spectacular soft corals, named octocorals for the eight tentacles around each polyp.
Researchers located some 300 soft coral species, dozens of small crustacean species, and an unusual amphipod of the Maxillipiidae family with a whip-like back leg almost three times the size of its body.
Also found were "new species of tanaid crustaceans, shrimp-like animals, some with claws longer than their bodies; and a beautiful, rare Cassiopeia jellyfish."
Between 40% and 60% of the tiny amphipod crustaceans listed will be formally described for the first time, researchers said.
The inventory will be used as a baseline to judge the impacts of global warming and overfishing.
Researchers say it could take years to analyse and name all their discoveries.
