Discovered in the Deep

In August 2022, I launched a new column at the Guardian, Discovered in the Deep.

The ocean is one of the world’s last truly wild spaces. It teems with fascinating species that sometimes seems to border on the absurd, from fish that look up through transparent heads to golden snails with iron armour.

As mining companies push to industrialise the sea floor and global leaders continue to squabble over how to protect the high seas, this new Guardian Seascape series will profile some of the most recently discovered weird, wonderful, majestic, ridiculous, hardcore and mind-blowing creatures. They reveal how much there is still to learn about the least known environment on Earth – and how much there is to protect.

First up is the scaly-foot snail, with its unique bionic shell and scales.

Photographs by Sigrid Hof, courtesy Senckenberg Research Institute and Museum. You can see this specimen from a hydrothermal vent in the Indian Ocean on display at the Senckenberg Museum.