Unknown Species from the Deep Discovered

Mysterious creatures from the deep have been discovered in waters off the east Antarctic land mass.

Scientists from around the world cruised waters in three ships and trawled at depths of 2,000 metres.

Voyage Leader Dr Martin Riddle says during 20 days of sampling they collected thousands of animals.

He says up to 25 per cent of them are previously unknown species.

"We saw giant worms, giant crustaceans, giant spiders, glass-like tunicates," he said.

"In other places things scraped bare and barren by iceberg scour so a huge diversity of life, very colourful, very rich, far exceeding any of our expectations."

Dr Riddle says the scientists specialising in cold water fish, had never seen anything like it.

"They had fins in various places, they had funny dangly bits around their mouths," he said.

"We were working on the bottom so they were all bottom dwellers so they were all evolved in different ways to live down on the sea bed in the dark so many of them had very large eyes, very strange looking fish."

The specimens have been sent to universities and museums around the world for analysis.

Further details and photos from the ABC.