Reef Creatures

Life and Death on the Reef

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Expedition Log: BIOT – Day 22 The grim reaper comes quickly if you are a coral. Superbly adapted to their life in the shallow ocean and so successful that they can build some of the biggest structures created by living …

The Daily Grind

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Expedition Log: BIOT – Day 21 Working at sea aboard the M/Y Golden Shadow, my day starts at 6:00am with a strong cup of coffee. The sun is just rising, and so is the rest of the dive team. The …

Adventures in Chagos (BIOT)

‘Adventures in Chagos,’ posted in the Scripps Institution Coral Reef Ecology blog, was written by Samantha Clements, a science team member on the Living Oceans Foundation’s BIOT Mission earlier this year. Adventures in Chagos Coral Reef Ecology Blog of Smith …

Solomon Islands Field Report

Between October 26, 2014 and November 24, 2014, the Khaled bin Sultan Living Oceans Foundation conducted a coral reef research, outreach and education mission to map and characterize the shallow marine habitats and assess the status of coral reefs and …

Stunning Sponges

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Expedition Log: BIOT – Day 20 For some divers, sponges are just unspectacular filter feeders hidden among corals, algae and other organisms but for others, including me, they are fascinating organisms. On many tropical Pacific reefs they are relatively uncommon, …

Walls of fish at Victory Bank

Written by Chris Mirbach Expedition Log: BIOT – Day 19 On a single dive on Victory Bank in the British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT), I saw the greatest abundance of fish I have ever witnessed, after having completed nearly 1000 …

Surprise in Surprise Atoll: A Cast of Hermit Crabs

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Written by Serge Andrefouet While scientific expeditions are generally driven by precise objectives implying rigorous data collection and protocols, they also occur in the wild, in an uncontrolled environment. Generally, we wish for surprise encounters with charismatic mega-fauna that could …