An unusual area of the Pacific Ocean is home to thousands of mysterious species

The Clarion-Clipperton Zone (CCZ), an area of 4.4 million square kilometres in the Pacific Ocean between Mexico and Hawaii. It is rich in valuable minerals and, although it looks rather lifeless, it is actually characterised by a complex ecosystem. The latter is still largely unexplored.

Of the 5,58,000 different organisms that have been recorded in the CCZ, only 436 have so far been identified and named.