Hidden Depths

Two Hong Kong biologists discovered three new species of coral, shedding light on how the city’s marine environment may be more diverse, and yet more fragile, than we imagined

By Zabrina Lo.

It started as just another summer’s day of analysing coral health in a Hong Kong Baptist University laboratory. Then, suddenly, Qiu Jianwen and his colleague Sam Yiu King-fung spotted something they had never seen before: the coral being eaten by some of the coral-eating nudibranchs they were studying was bright orange and violet. They had inadvertently discovered what would turn out to be three new species. Hong Kong isn’t known for colourful corals; these are more commonly found in diving paradises like Tubbataha Reef in the Philippines or Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, where the warmer tropical waters and gentler underwater terrain enable the growth of vast, brightly coloured communities. Here in Hong Kong, where nearly 90 species have been identified, most hard coral is pale, greyish and monochrome, as the relatively…

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Tatler Hong Kong (Digital) - 1 Issue, November 2022

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