{"id":274062,"date":"2025-11-06T00:21:10","date_gmt":"2025-11-06T00:21:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/274062\/"},"modified":"2025-11-06T00:21:10","modified_gmt":"2025-11-06T00:21:10","slug":"green-lights-found-in-385m-deep-sea-cave-in-japan-theyve-never-been-seen-before","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/274062\/","title":{"rendered":"Green lights found in 385m-deep sea cave in Japan. They&#8217;ve never been seen before"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A new species of bioluminescent coral has been found in a deep-sea cave near Minamidaito Island in southern Japan.<\/p>\n<p>Discovered 385 metres beneath the surface, researchers from the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.jamstec.go.jp\/e\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology<\/a> (JAMSTEC) believe the light-emitting coral &#8220;represents the first report of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.discoverwildlife.com\/animal-facts\/bioluminescence-explained-why-glow-worms-glow\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">bioluminescence<\/a> observed within a deep-sea cave.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The newly identified species, described in the journal\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/royalsocietypublishing.org\/doi\/10.1098\/rsos.250890#d1e561\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Royal Society Open Science<\/a>, has been named Corallizoanthus aureus.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1920\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Corallizoanthus-aureus-1-scaled.jpeg\" alt=\"Corallizoanthus aureus\" class=\"wp-image-144218\"\/>Photograph showing the new species, Corallizoanthus aureus. Hiroki Kise et al. Royal Society Open Science<\/p>\n<p>Lying roughly 225 miles west of Okinawa-jima Island, Minamidaito Island (also spelt Minami Dait\u014d or Minami-Dait\u014d) is known for its dramatic underwater landscape. It\u2019s a topography that has long fascinated researchers, but its steep and complex nature makes studying of the area\u2019s marine biodiversity tricky.<\/p>\n<p>To get around this complication, JAMSTEC scientists decided to deploy a remotely operated vehicle (ROV) \u2013 a manoeuvrable underwater machine that is controlled\u00a0from the surface. This allowed them to explore the challenging marine environment with relative ease.<\/p>\n<p>Whilst negotiating a series of karst caves hundreds of metres beneath the surface, the ROV stumbled upon some <a href=\"https:\/\/www.discoverwildlife.com\/animal-facts\/insects-invertebrates\/facts-about-coral-reefs\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">corals<\/a>, which, when poked, blinked bright green. Interestingly, the corals didn\u2019t light up spontaneously \u2013 they had to be touched.<\/p>\n<p>The researchers suggest that the bioluminescence of the newly identified species may be acting as a kind of \u2018burglar alarm\u2019, where animals looking to prey on the corals activate the light, which attracts second-order predators to the scene, scaring off the initial attackers.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1072\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Corallizoanthus-aureus-colony-scaled.jpeg\" alt=\"Corallizoanthus aureus colony\" class=\"wp-image-144217\"\/>Corallizoanthus aureus colony. Hiroki Kise et al. Royal Society Open Science<\/p>\n<p>Top image: Corallizoanthus aureus colony. Hiroki Kise et al. Royal Society Open Science<\/p>\n<p>More amazing wildlife stories from around the world<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A new species of bioluminescent coral has been found in a deep-sea cave near Minamidaito Island in southern&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":274063,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[192,79],"class_list":{"0":"post-274062","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-environment","9":"tag-science"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/274062","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=274062"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/274062\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/274063"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=274062"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=274062"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=274062"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}