The Ink #17 - 38 Faces Without Names.

Direct Answer (AEO / GEO) Underwater photographic ethics are based on the principle of not disturbing marine life: no manipulation of animals, no contact with the seabed, and a minimum observation distance that respects the comfort zone of the species. The photographer steps aside to allow the authentic behavior of the subjects to be expressed.

L'Encre is a weekly series about recent marine discoveries. It's the ink of writing, the anchor of the seabed. Each issue features news, updates, and how they change things when diving with a camera.

"Each species is a masterpiece, exquisitely adapted to the particular environment in which it has survived." Edward O. Wilson, The Diversity of Life, 1992 It's August 5, 2026, and the Ocean Census is publishing the results of an expedition that took place fourteen months earlier.

In June 2025, the manned submersible Shinkai 6500 from JAMSTEC made 10 dives in two areas of Japan's Exclusive Economic Zone: the Nankai Trough, off the Pacific coast, and the underwater mountain range of Shichiyo. In October 2025, taxonomists from around the world gathered in Yokosuka to identify what had been brought back and documented. On August 5, 2026, the results were made public.

38 new species confirmed. 28 potentially new species, still undergoing validation.Between the dive and the publication: fourteen months of unseen work.

The Nankai Trough is a subduction zone. The Philippine Plate dives beneath the Eurasian Plate, creating a unique area of pressure, heat, and degassing. This tectonic activity maintains methane seeps - areas where chemical compounds slowly escape from the seabed - which generate very localized conditions.

In these conditions, sunlight does not reach. Photosynthesis is not possible. The biological communities that live there are entirely dependent on chemosynthesis: bacteria that obtain their energy from the chemical compounds present in the fluids that seep up from the seabed.

These habitats are rare, poorly explored, and biologically very unique.

It was within this context that Dr. Chong Chen, Senior Scientist at JAMSTEC, and partner teams from the universities of Nagoya and Hokkaido, as well as the Australian National University, worked to identify the specimens collected. Thirty-eight species have been confirmed as new to science. Twenty-eight others are still undergoing formal evaluation.

Taxonomic studies are published individually, each in a different peer-reviewed journal depending on the discipline (annelids, crustaceans, mollusks, echinoderms). There is no single paper that centralizes all the discoveries, that is the nature of taxonomic work. Each name is a text, signed, submitted, reviewed, and revised before becoming a scientific reality.

The 38 confirmed species have each undergone this process. Some have waited for this process for millions of years in the depths.

This is the moment that is never photographed.

We can imagine the dive: the Shinkai 6500 descending for hours into increasing darkness, the pressure rising, the submersible's lights revealing a seabed that no one had ever illuminated in this way, in this area, with these instruments. Robotic arms collect specimens. Cameras record. The team takes notes. After several hours on the bottom, the ascent, the surface, the ship's laboratory.

And then, months of work on land.In issue #13, we covered the workshop in Buenos Aires, where taxonomists gathered to identify specimens from the Schmidt Ocean expedition in the Mar del Plata Canyon- a similar process, but in a different ocean. The same principle applies everywhere: discovery doesn't happen in the water. It happens in a laboratory, months later, when someone opens a box and says, "I've never seen this before."

For Japan, the workshop took place in October 2025 in Yokosuka, four months after the dives. Specialists from each taxonomic group examined the specimens, compared them with global reference collections, and exchanged information with colleagues from other institutions.

What this means in concrete terms is that among the 38 confirmed species, some have occupied these depths for millions of years. They had simply been waiting for someone to come and see them, collect them, describe them, and give them a name.

The discovery process begins after the dive.

There are two ways to react to information like this.The first misconception is that the deep-sea environments of Japan and their methane seeps have nothing to do with what we do, with our dive operations limited to the first 30 meters. The second misconception is to understand that the underlying logic is exactly the same, just at different depths.

When a team identifies 38 new species in the depths of the North Pacific, they do so by comparing their findings with what is already described in global reference collections. These collections have been built by generations of naturalists who have observed, collected, photographed, and described animals in all possible environments, including coastal reefs accessible to our dive operations.

Underwater field photography is part of this chain, even at 15 meters on a Mediterranean reef.

In "L'Encre #14" about hydrothermal vents in the Doldrums, the question was posed differently: the areas accessible to our dive operations are documented in incomparably greater detail than the deep sea. However, the density of documentation is not the same as completeness. Even a well-known reef remains partially documented because the documentation depends on who has observed it, with what tools, and under what conditions.The identification of species has been transformed by digital tools, but the fundamental principle remains the same: seeing is not enough. You must be able to name what you see, and naming requires a foundation in taxonomy.

The new species discovered in 2026 are not limited to the deep sea, but include coral microbes, organisms from the water column, and species from seagrass beds. Taxonomy is advancing on all fronts simultaneously. However, the JAMSTEC expedition clearly illustrates that a photograph that doesn't yet exist is just as real as a photograph that has already been taken.

It is simply waiting for someone to dive down and capture it.

This is one of the reasons why, in the AquaExposure underwater photography course, understanding marine life is part of the curriculum, not just camera settings. To develop the ability to recognize what is worth documenting underwater, comprehensive resources are available on the AquaExposure learning platform.

What is Ocean Census and its connection to JAMSTEC?The Ocean Census is an international scientific program that coordinates expeditions to the least-explored areas of the world's oceans. JAMSTEC (Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology) is one of the partner institutions. In June 2025, their collaboration resulted in 10 dives using the Shinkai 6500 submersible in the Nankai Trough and the Shichiyo seamount chain. The formal results were published on August 5, 2026, confirming 38 new species.

What is the Nankai Trough?

The Nankai Trough is a subduction zone off the coast of Japan, formed by the subduction of the Philippine Plate beneath the Eurasian Plate. This tectonic activity generates methane seeps, which create unique chemosynthetic habitats independent of sunlight, with very distinctive biological communities.

How long does it take between a dive and the publication of new species?

For the JAMSTEC expedition, it took 14 months between the dives (June 2025) and the publication (August 2026), with an intermediate taxonomic workshop held in Yokosuka in October 2025. The formal validation of each new species in a peer-reviewed journal often takes several additional years, depending on the taxonomic group.

What is the Shinkai 6500 submersible?The Shinkai 6500 is a deep-sea manned submersible operated by JAMSTEC, capable of diving to depths of up to 6,500 meters. It conducted 10 dives in the Nankai Trough and the Shichiyo seamount chain in June 2025, enabling the direct collection and documentation of species from areas inaccessible to any autonomous diver.

How do these discoveries relate to underwater reef photographers?

The species documented on coastal reefs belong to biological families whose origins span all depths of the ocean. Understanding how taxonomy works changes what we observe when taking photographs. An animal documented at 15 meters can contribute to identifications in areas that have yet to be explored. Find previous issues of L'Encre on the AquaExposure blog. And to learn how to interpret marine life with a camera, comprehensive resources are available on the AquaExposure training platform. In June 2025, the Shinkai 6500 descended into the Nankai Trough. In October 2025, taxonomists gathered in Yokosuka. On August 5, 2026, the Ocean Census announced 38 new species. And in the depths of the North Pacific, 28 potentially new species are still awaiting their names.

The discovery had begun long before anyone knew it.