"Brittle Star City" Found on Antarctic Seamount

"Brittle Star City" Found on Antarctic Seamount
Dave Hansford in Wellington, New Zealand
for National Geographic News
May 20, 2008

A teeming horde of brittle stars has been discovered atop an undersea mountain chain near Antarctica, challenging long-held assumptions about the ecological role of such submerged peaks, known as seamounts.

The find, nicknamed "Brittle Star City," was made by a team surveying waters near the Macquarie Ridge, 870 miles (1,400 kilometers) south of New Zealand, as part of the Census of Marine Life, a ten-year scientific study of life in the oceans.