8 Sep
Cave diving at Canary Islands results to discovery of new crustacean species
Posted on 2009 under diving | 1 Comment
A cave diving expedition by a team of cave divers and scientists in the Canary Islands bore fruit after the team discovered new crustacean species that belong to the remipede genus Speleonectes.
The said crustaceans can easily manage to swim across the dark caves while searching for prey. These creates don’t use eyes but rather the long antennae attached to their body that acts as a detector.
The expedition took place at Tunnel de la Atlantida, considered to be the world’s longest submarine lava tube. Aside from the aforementioned species, the scientists also discovered two new annelid worms species classified under Polychaeta class.
The cave diving team consisted of scientists / divers from Pennsylvania State University and Texas A&M University from the United States, Spain’s University of La Laguna, University of Hamburg and University of Veterinary Medicine Hannover, both from Germany.