New Species On Ocean Floor

Grania the globetrotter

Grania is a worm around two centimetres in length and mostly white, which is encountered in marine sand throughout the world, from the tidal zone to deep down in the ocean. The researcher Pierre De Wit, at the Department of Zoology of the University of Gothenburg, is analysing exactly how many species of Grania there are and how they are related to other organisms.

Four new species

De Wit has conducted studies at the Great Barrier Reef in Australia, where he and his colleagues have found four entirely new species of the Grania worm. One of them is the beautifully green-coloured Grania colorata.

"These worms are usually colourless or white, and we have not been able to work out why this particular species is green," says De Wit.