Creatures of the Underwater Caves
New Species
By around 7,000 years ago, the polar ice caps melted to about their
modern-day size and the sea level rose accordingly, flooding the
blue hole caves in the Bahamas and elsewhere with saltwater. Marine
biologist Tom Iliffe is pictured here with a new species of
invertebrate. Most of the species discovered in the deep,
oxygen-depleted marine waters are new to science, so we know
relatively little about them.