By Laura Hastings:
A recent survey conducted in the Northwest Hawaiian Islands (NWHI) Marine National Monument has uncovered a trove of new species.More marine life, in Singapore, here.Researchers working on the ‘Census of Coral Reefs‘ project set out in October 2006 to explore the waters around the French Frigate Shoals, a group of atolls in the NWHI National Monument.
New species of purple sea stars, hermit crabs [see also here], sea cucumbers, reef brachiopods [see also here], coral, and sea squirts were among those documented by the team.
Extinct brachiopods: here.
And here.
The tiny Pacific islands nation of Kiribati declared the world’s largest marine protected area Thursday—a California-sized ocean wilderness that includes pristine reefs and eight coral atolls teeming with fish and birds. The Phoenix Islands Protected Area, or PIPA, lies about halfway between Hawaii and Fiji: here.
