World's Largest Fish Nesting Ground With 60 Million Nests Discovered Under Antarctic Ice (Pics & Video)

The unexpected find is way larger than any other known colony of fish nests found so far. The fact that we know less about the ocean floor than we do about the surface of the Moon doesn’t make this incredible find any less surprising. Five hundred meters below the ice covering the south of Antarctica’s Weddell Sea, a research team recently discovered the world’s largest fish breeding site known to date.

Since each active nest contains about 1,000-2,000 eggs and there are many adults hanging around to protect them, the biomass of the colony is estimated to weigh around 60,000 tons. It is now wonder, then, that the resource-rich area is also frequented by hungry Weddell seals. Being the most spatially extensive contiguous fish breeding colony ever recorded on Earth, the nesting site definitely tops the charts for significant breeding sites – a pretty solid argument for the establishment of the marine protected area proposed.