A robot has found more than 100 new marine species off the coast of Chile

They are all inhabitants of a mysterious underwater mountain range. The Salas y Gómez and Nazca Ridges are 2,900km long. They form a chain of more than 200 ‘seamounts’. Nearly half of the species living here exist nowhere else on Earth. Scientists from the Schmidt Ocean Institute have been exploring 10 of these seamounts. They used a robot operating at a depth of up to 4,500m to gather data to support the creation of a new marine protected area (MPA).