A new species of bioluminescent coral has been found in a deep-sea cave near Minamidaito Island in southern Japan.
Discovered 385 metres beneath the surface, researchers from the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology (JAMSTEC) believe the light-emitting coral "represents the first report of bioluminescence observed within a deep-sea cave.”
The newly identified species, described in the journal Royal Society Open Science, has been named Corallizoanthus aureus.
Lying roughly 225 miles west of Okinawa-jima Island, Minamidaito Island (also spelt Minami Daitō or Minami-Daitō) is known for its dramatic underwater landscape. It’s a topography that has long fascinated researchers, but its steep and complex nature makes studying of the area’s marine biodiversity tricky.
To get around this complication, JAMSTEC scientists decided to deploy a remotely operated vehicle (ROV) – a manoeuvrable underwater machine that is controlled from the surface. This allowed them to explore the challenging marine environment with relative ease.
Whilst negotiating a series of karst caves hundreds of metres beneath the surface, the ROV stumbled upon some corals, which, when poked, blinked bright green. Interestingly, the corals didn’t light up spontaneously – they had to be touched.
The researchers suggest that the bioluminescence of the newly identified species may be acting as a kind of ‘burglar alarm’, where animals looking to prey on the corals activate the light, which attracts second-order predators to the scene, scaring off the initial attackers.
Top image: Corallizoanthus aureus colony. Hiroki Kise et al. Royal Society Open Science
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