Fig. 1 Some new species discovered by CoML. (A) A bigfin squid is a new family Magnapinnidae, up to 7 m long; (B) Species thought to be extinct 50 million years ago have been rediscovered, such as this Jurassic shrimp, Laurentaeglyphea neocaledonica; (C) The only remaining species of a genus of deep-water clams that flourished worldwide for more than 100 million years, Pholadomya candida was rediscovered; (D) Anaerobic animals living without oxygen, loriciferans, Nanaloricus cinzia.

Fig. 2 Some unfamiliar species reported in World Ocean Census (2009), such as (A, B) a new species of yeti crab, Kiwa hirsute, discovered in thermal vent; (C) A new species of deep sea fish Aphyonus gelatinousus collected from Taiwan; (D) A new genus and new species of shrimp, Diochelus ausubeli, collected from Philippine Sea at 300 m bottom (photo provided by Tin-Yam Chan, Taiwan)

Fig. 3 A global map of the nearly 30 million records and more than 190,000 species webpages has been integrated in Ocean Biogeographic Information System database. The map shows the known and unknown ocean, particularly in far sea and mid-pelagic or abyssal zone remain largely unexplored. (Source: OBIS)

Fig. 4 Many new investigating instruments and new international collaboration programs are actively promoting (from http://www.coml.org/, Author: E. Paul Oberlander)

Fig. 5 Group photo of the first CHINA-CoML meeting which was held in December 20, 2005 in Qingdao, Shandong

Fig. 6 Taiwan marine biologists―Kwang-Tsao Shao, Tin-Yam Chan, Chia-Wei Lin, and Yun-Chih Liao (arrow marks from left to right) joined one 20-day deep-sea biodiversity expedition in Philippine Sea in 2007.

Fig. 7 Based on the comparison analysis between Taiwan Catalog of Life (TaiBNET) and World Register of Marine Species (WoRMS), it is estimated that more than 13,000 marine species have been recorded in Taiwan.