Using tools ranging from musty 19th-century Massachusetts fishing logbooks to powerful new sensors able to illuminate large swaths of ocean at a snap, scientists are close to completing the first worldwide tally of marine creatures.
Among other things, they have found tubeworms that imbibe crude oil; a crustacean so shaggy it might be answering a casting call for Broadway’s “Hair’’; and a sort of singles cafe for sharks where great whites cruise hungrily for sex.
“We’re finding what we expected — the utterly unexpected,’’ said Chris German, chief scientist for deep submergence at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.
The renowned marine research centers at Woods Hole, joined with others across New England and on five continents, are contributing sophisticated technology, deep water know-how, and scientific brainpower to the Census of Marine Life — history’s largest collaboration of marine researchers.