Bert Hoeksema

Coral reef surveys in 2021 at the leeward side of Curacao (Duthc Caribbean) yielded the discoery of a new worm snail for the Atlantic. With the help of photographs taken during elarlier surveys, its presence on Curacao could be traced back to 2014 and on Bonaire to 2019.  The species cannot be Petaloconchus varians because that worm builds reefs in shallow waters.  

A presumably invasive coral species that was discovered on the reefs around Curaçao is not invasive after all. The coral is in fact a native species that normally resides in deeper water, but has migrated to more shallow waters. That is the conclusion of scientists of Naturalis Biodiversity Center at Leiden, The Netherlands, and CARMABI Research Station at Curaçao. 

Article originally published in BioNews 30

More Information: Hoeksema, B.W., A.F. Hiemstra, and M. J. A. Vermeij. (2019). The rise of a native sun coral species on southern Caribbean coral reefs. Ecosphere 10(11):e02942. 10.1002/ecs2.2942