Millions watched a Patrick Star lookalike. Scientists ended up uncovering 57 new deep-sea species
A viral sea star drew viewers to Argentina's deep sea, where scientists later logged 57 new species and signs of human litter.
A bright orange sea star that reminded viewers of Patrick Star became the face of a deep-sea livestream off Argentina. But the biggest result from that expedition was what scientists found after the cameras stopped: 57 species new to science, plus five new genera, from the Mar del Plata Canyon.
The viral star was not the real surprise
Most of the specimens came from a 2025 expedition in Argentina's Mar del Plata Canyon, when the research vessel Falkor (too) sent the remotely operated vehicle SuBastian into the deep South Atlantic and streamed the dives live. Ocean Census said more than 4 million people watched, with many tuning in for an orange sea star that looked like Patrick Star from SpongeBob SquarePants.
That sea star was not a new species, and scientists left it where it was. The bigger change came later, when 20 taxonomists from Latin America and Europe met in Buenos Aires in July 2026 to sort the samples. In two weeks, they identified 57 species new to science and five new genera.
What was found, and what happens next
The newly logged finds included 22 echinoderms such as sea cucumbers and feather stars, 20 copepods, 14 corals and sea pens, and one scaphopod, a mollusk with a tusk-shaped shell. One of the standouts was a horned sea cucumber nicknamed Loki, found 2,577 meters below the surface.
Scientists count these animals as discovered once experts judge them to be new and enter them into the open-access Ocean Census NOVA database. Formal description is a longer process that needs a peer-reviewed paper and a reference specimen in a museum, and it can take years.
The copepods suggest there may be much more to come. Researchers examined only 10% of those samples, yet every specimen they checked was new to science. That produced 20 species and one new genus, with 90% of the copepod material still unexamined. The 14 corals and sea pens also include two potential new genera and a potential new family, pending genetic analysis.
A remote canyon, but not an untouched one
Scientists say the canyon's diversity is linked to its position where the warm Brazil Current meets the cold, nutrient-rich Malvinas Current. The canyon drops more than 3,500 meters and lies about 250 kilometers offshore.
The expedition also recorded human litter on the seafloor. During 10 dives, researchers found 29 pieces of rubbish, mostly plastic and some rubber. The first item seen was a plastic bag tangled on the seabed, and one piece of plastic tissue-paper packaging was recorded at 3,814 meters. Much of the debris was fishing gear, and researchers suspect most of it came from activity at sea. A sea star was seen sitting on a plastic bag, and organisms had colonized a fishing rope.
The new specimens will remain in Argentina in national collections, including the Museo Argentino de Ciencias Naturales in Buenos Aires.
