On May 11th, the long awaited second special volume of the journal Zootaxa on biodiversity in the abys has appeared. More than 50 deep-sea species are described in 29 papers, including many belonging to the meiofauna, such as nematodes and copepods. Single-celled organisms with global distribution were investigated with molecular methods to confirm their identity. With this publication, the number of newly described abyssal species within CeDAMar rises to 395, putting our goal of 500 species by 2010 well within reach. All papers of the special volume are open access publications and can be downloaded freely from www.mapress.com/zootaxa .