They went on a forty-day expedition to a submarine mountain range that starts somewhere off the coast of Chile and continues to Easter Island. The area is extremely remote and therefore relatively little explored. The researchers found 160 species of animals that they did not know lived there and at least fifty species that they had never seen before. These include deep-sea corals, glass sponges, sea urchins, jellyfish, fish, crabs, lobsters, starfish and molluscs.
Vulnerable habitat
“The main results of our expedition are that we have discovered between fifty and sixty apparently new species, a number that will probably increase, because we are still working on many samples in the laboratory,” says researcher Ariadna Mechó. “We also found one of the deepest mesophotic corals in the world (corals in dark zones with little light, ed.).
This Polynesian fauna therefore buy email database occurs several hundred kilometers further than previously thought. And at great depths we discovered fields full of sponges and corals, habitats that are vulnerable and in need of protection.”
