Comparing a bleached anemone to the undead may be a bit of a stretch, but it is fair to say a bleached anemone is hovering somewhere between life and death and depending on what happens next, it can go either way. We
Expedition Log: Maldives – Day 18 Over a short three-week period, our team of four scientists collected over 7,500 crown of thorns starfish (COTS) from three locations off North Malé Atoll and South Malé Atoll in the Maldives. While this
Expedition Log: Maldives – Day 17 Our third area of research in the Maldives involved recent outbreaks of COTS reported from South Malé Atoll near Anantara Dhigu and Veli. Marine Biologists Marta Rigo and Alba had first observed starfish in the
Expedition Log: Maldives – Day 16 The Sweetlips are a family of fish easily identified by their big, fleshy lips. The family is a large one with 120 species found around the world in tropical and temperate seas. Juvenile sweetlips
Expedition Log: Maldives – Day 15 Often misidentified as a brittle star, yet plant-like in appearance, with long, flexible and highly contorted feathery arms, crinoids are the most ancient class of spiny skinned animals in the Phylum Echinodermata. Dating back
Expedition Log: Maldives – Day 14 Crown of thorns starfish (COTS) have undergone population explosions since at least the 1960s and scientists and managers have tried to control these outbreaks for just as long. The standard practice to control COTS
A mass bleaching event in the Indian Ocean turns corals cotton-candy shades of pink and blue The phrase ‘coral-bleaching’ brings to mind ghostly-white skeletons of coral but what we found when we dived on reefs in the British Indian Ocean Territory
Expedition Log: Maldives – Day 13 Corals have very few defenses against crown of thorns starfish (COTS). Their shape may partially protect them, especially species with long, closely spaced branches that are inaccessible to the stomach of the starfish. There
Expedition Log: Maldives – Day 12 “In the end we will conserve only what we love, we will love only what we understand, and we will understand only what we are taught.” Baba Dioum This beautiful statement was spoken in
Expedition Log: Maldives – Day 11 Every diver will have a selection of fish that make them smile each time they come across them. For me, one of the new additions to my list this year was the two-spot banded
