The first thing the researchers noticed from their boat were red spots below the surface of the water during one of their expeditions. This detail led them to carry out a sampling in the Kawésqar National Reserve, a marine protected area in Chile’s extreme south. At 1.2 meters (3.9 feet) depth, they found a large number of red hydrocorals, which are colonial marine animals that resemble, but are distinct from, the more familiar reef-building corals. The discovery attracted their attention because, until then, this species, Errina antarctica, had never been recorded in areas so shallow, much less at such southern latitudes. However, the discovery wasn’t made by chance. The researchers, from the Chilean non-profit Fundación Rewilding Chile and the Spanish Institute of Oceanography, had spent several months analyzing previous marine investigations done between Puerto Montt and Cape Horn to detect gaps in the record. “We checked the entire terrestrial mapping, as well as maps from the SHOA [Hydrographic and Oceanographic Service of the Chilean Navy], which includes the depths and descriptions of banks of certain species,” said Ingrid Espinoza León, director of conservation with Fundación Rewilding Chile and co-author of a paper describing the discovery published in April in the journal Scientific Reports. The researchers’ goal was to identify the most unexplored areas and to determine which locations were of greatest interest to explore. To achieve this, they interviewed local residents familiar with the territory. The discovery wasn’t made by chance. The researchers had spent months analyzing previous marine research…This article was originally published on Mongabay
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