7 ms·

Long presumed dead, a thriving coral reef is discovered in West Africa

• F7F7F7 3mo ago
  The biodiversity in West Africa in general is completely underrated. I mean, Darwin solidified his trajectory in life a few short days after the Beagle anchored off of Cape Verde (a place he initially detested then fell in love with). I'm hoping that Cape Verde's World Cup success story translates to more eye balls on stories like this (with the mere mention of the country landing it in search results). Which means more attention, money and research to West Africa's relatively fragile but diverse ecosystem.
  • lubujackson 3mo ago
    There are 6 floristic kingdoms in the world, and Fynbos can only be found in a tiny section of Africa. When I was there it was wild to see a completely different array of plants and flowers. There is one small white flower that had petals that felt like some sort of sythentic material. There is a whole world that very few people experience or even know exists.
• novia 3mo ago
  > Zinzindohoué agrees: “We don’t need to wait for others to come to our country to show us what is under our sea. We are the ones who must take responsibility.
  • wildfireday2 3mo ago
    Yet, they didn’t. And for those commenting about risk from tourism, this is mesophotic coral at 175 feet. It’s out of range of recreational scuba much less shallow-reef snorkelers. Only technical divers can reach this reef. That’s why it hadn’t even been explored for all this time.
    • paulhebert 3mo ago
      Isn’t this whole article about how they’re doing so right now?
• Anoian 3mo ago
  The less people know, the better. These places are better left untouched by humanity.
• SparkyMcUnicorn 3mo ago
  This source appears to have more images and info: https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/marine-science/articles/10.3389/fmars.2026.1848226/full https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/marine-science/articles...
  • dang 3mo ago
    We'll put that link in the toptext as well. Thanks!
• functionmouse 3mo ago
  [flagged]
  • lemonberry 3mo ago
    I walk an old logging trail near my house. 5 years or so ago I was walking and came across a lady slipper. Then another and another. I stopped counting at around 100. I've never seen so many in one place. It was incredible. I stopped taking people there when they've bloomed to help preserve them. It's a free and public place, but on a lightly travelled road so it doesn't actually get much traffic. Anyone that takes that walk at the right time of year will see them, but I've no interest in helping the inevitable happen if word gets out.
    • akk0 3mo ago
      Not having heard of this plant before, I was rather confused why people would leave so much footwear on this trail.
      • soperj 3mo ago
        haha yes, 100% thought this was about someone dumping used shoes in a pristine area before your comment.
        • pixl97 3mo ago
          I listen to too many crime podcasts. My mind was going, one slipper, the second slipper, then the body.
          • interloxia 3mo ago
            Or all of those feet in BC https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salish_Sea_human_foot_discoveries https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salish_Sea_human_foot_discover... try botany: Crime Pays But Botany Doesn't https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3CBOpT2-NRvoc2ecFMDCsA https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3CBOpT2-NRvoc2ecFMDCsA
• yieldcrv 3mo ago
  reading all those easily solved frictions they encountered was sad
• ck2 3mo ago
  vaguely related I read a fascinating story the other day about basically garbage dumping of leftover oyster/clam shells being used to re-seed a marine ecosystem off the Florida Keys * https://www.yahoo.com/news/science/articles/florida-dumped-half-million-oyster-192825163.html https://www.yahoo.com/news/science/articles/florida-dumped-h...
  • soperj 3mo ago
    they were doing that in New York as well if I'm not mistaken
    • Jtsummers 3mo ago
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billion_Oyster_Project https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billion_Oyster_Project - Different effort, this one is about putting out living oysters, not just shells as GP was talking about. And to be clear, in GP's link, living oysters do show up, but they weren't put there deliberately (the shells and every other development provided the larvae with places to grow and establish themselves). The NY project started with oyster larvae placed on discarded shells to deliberately create the new environment with an oyster population.
      • soperj 3mo ago
        did this start as just shells? Because I remember reading something a long time ago about this and they were just putting shells in the bay in metal cages. Amazing that they're actually progressing on a billion oysters. That's incredible. I wonder when it becomes self sustaining, and just reaches a billion on it's own.
        • pests 3mo ago
          > As part of the strategy, discarded oyster shells from over 70 New York restaurants are collected and left outside for a year to be naturally cleansed of organic matter. Baby oysters are then placed on the shells by students at New York Harbor School, a maritime-focused public high school located on Governors Island. [10]
• nothinggoesaway 3mo ago
  Chemical sunscreen famously kills coral. Some dermatologists have noted that sunscreen is little used in Africa. [1] I’m not saying that is the only explanation for the reef’s preservation, but it’s likely a significant contributing factor. [1] https://theconversation.com/sunscreen-wouldnt-have-saved-bob-marley-from-melanoma-and-it-wont-help-other-dark-skinned-people-116979 https://theconversation.com/sunscreen-wouldnt-have-saved-bob...
  • wildfireday2 3mo ago
    That and being 175 feet below the surface. You’re not getting “sunscreen” on mesophotic coral.
  • parineum 3mo ago
    The evidence for sunscreen killing coral is pretty thin and the evidence that so-called mineral sunscreen _not_ killing coral is non-existent.
    • frollogaston 3mo ago
      The mineral sunscreen comes off way more easily in water. For that reason, so did a few layers of my skin in the Bahamas.
      • redeeman 3mo ago
        i have a zinc/beeswax sunscreen, the thing is damn near impossible to get off, definitely WAY more water resistant than normal so called waterproof sunscreen
• deleted 3mo ago
  [deleted]
• bix6 3mo ago
  For the coral lovers. There are multiple companies working on reef preservation. They are woefully under resourced. If you can help, please do.
  • Aboutplants 3mo ago
    I’ve always been curious as to the level of success these programs achieve compared to just letting nature respond on its own. There are many cases where “dead” areas come back to life with abundance and give me pause as to whether we should for the most part just get out of natures way.
    • bix6 3mo ago
      Here’s one successful example that only worked because of human intervention: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2024/03/240308123248.htm https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2024/03/240308123248.h... They can only survive short duration events. At some point the temp and time is too much and they die. The only way they come back is reintroduction. We’ve lost over 50% of the reefs and are expected to lose 90% by 2050. There are many amazing solutions. Some use corals more resistant to heat stress. Australia has seen some promising results with seed boxes. I know of a few other amazing solutions currently in the lab. We have already gotten in natures way. So now we need to help nature with our technology.
      • lukan 3mo ago
        "So now we need to help nature with our technology." I guess the best help, would be stop getting into natures way so brutally, but since transforming the whole industry takes time and making people aware and care is even harder, some technical solutions to offset some damage is of course welcome.
        • bix6 3mo ago
          Unless we change the incentives, people will continue strip mining everything. I do have hope though as there is a lot that can still be done.
• peter_stokes 3mo ago
  More details on the Deep Sea Camera System used here: https://www.dev.nationalgeographic.org/society/our-programs/lab/ https://www.dev.nationalgeographic.org/society/our-programs/... https://github.com/NGS-Exploration-Technology/Deep-Sea-Camera-System https://github.com/NGS-Exploration-Technology/Deep-Sea-Camer...
• aaron695 3mo ago
  [dead]
• danteocualesjr 3mo ago
  That's wild
• rendonroman 3mo ago
  Nice to read a paper that's looking for paths of persistence instead of only documenting decline. Climate stories often end with "thing are getting worse", this one also asks where ecosystems might still persist if local conditions are managed well.
  • davidinosauro 3mo ago
    I'm just now reading _Ocean_ by David Attenborough and Colin Butfield, which includes many stories like this. Would recommend!
• BloodyIron 3mo ago
  YAY!
• pcrh 3mo ago
  Related, I recently read an article about staghorn corals surviving in Miami of all places [1]. They resisted bleaching, pollution and inundations with fresh water. The origin of this resistance is apparently colonization by a different species of algae that is otherwise native to the western Pacific and Indian Oceans. [1] https://www.biographic.com/the-corals-that-shouldnt-exist/ https://www.biographic.com/the-corals-that-shouldnt-exist/
• spaaaaaaaaaaace 3mo ago
  wow interesting
• consumer451 3mo ago
  I am sorry to be negative, but after living in a commercial fishing area for a while: I wish we would stop discovering reefs, as that just invites horrible things like drag net fleets into these areas. [0] We are strip-mining the oceans' remaining bounty. When I lived in that commercial fishing area, I learned about bycatch. That is a top-tier euphemism for destroying the entire ocean ecosystem/protein-provider, where sometimes only 3% of caught biomass makes it to any table. [1] Shrimp is by far the worst. Please stop eating shrimp. If you knew the truth, and respect efficiency, you would never eat wild shrimp again. I went from thinking that seafood was a good thing, to now mostly eating chicken. We are such morons with how we treat the seas. BTW, I love spearfishing. If that is how I got my seafood, then not only fun, but no waste/bycatch. [0] https://globalfishingwatch.org/map/ https://globalfishingwatch.org/map/ [1] https://www.fao.org/4/w6602e/w6602E09.htm https://www.fao.org/4/w6602e/w6602E09.htm