Researchers have recently completed the global Census of Marine Life, a massive assessment of the world's oceans and the life contained within them.
The decade-long project, which involved more than 2,700 scientists from 80 nations, culminated October 4 with data on 120,000 species.
Tracking migrations across seas and up and down the water column, the study paints a broad picture of the health of the world's oceans. Among the findings are revelations of how much we don't know--an estimated 750,000 undiscovered species and vast areas of ocean that have never been explored.
One of four types of amoebas found living in open waters, the acantharians are fragile creatures, with a skeleton made of a single crystal of strontium sulfate and 20 mineralized spines radiating from their center.
Not much is known of these creatures because the strontium sulfate skeletal system quickly dissolves in the ocean waters after the organism dies, leaving little for the fossil record.
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