A small, warm, sub-tropical Atlantic Ocean island with enough tourist visitors to make access easy and facilities plentiful, diving not mainstream but both good and also dependable—this is Lanzarote.
Squids, octopus and cuttlefish (who all belong to the phylum of molluscs) are among the most intelligent animals in the sea, and definitely the most intelligent marine invertebrates. We should in fact ask ourselves if the human mind is capable of thinking as fast as these creatures do.
The northern end of the Gulf of Aqaba in the Red Sea is full of new opportunities and fresh dive sites. "Find something new and interesting to report on at the Red Sea" was the assignment I gave myself. Right.
New Zealand is a centre of biodiversity for marine sponges," NIWA's Dr Michelle Kelly said. "New Zealand is probably the most diverse region in the world for these carnivorous sponges and they are on isolated seamounts that could be at risk of dredging."
A visiting scientist, Professor Jean Vacelet from Centre d'Oceanologie de Marseille and Nicole Boury-Esnault made the first discovery of a carnivorous sponge only 16 years ago – in 1995 – in submarine caves in the Mediterranean Sea.
