Long Presumed Dead, a Thriving Coral Reef Is Discovered in West Africa

被认为早已消失，西非发现生机勃勃的珊瑚礁

Sixty years after surveyors first uncovered evidence of a sprawling coral reef off the West African nation of Benin, scientists have at last found the reef. 在西非国家贝宁近海首次发现大片珊瑚礁的证据六十年后，科学家们终于找到了这片珊瑚礁。

In the 1960s, fishing surveyors off West Africa’s Benin coast hauled up heads of coral in their nets. Employed by local governments to assess fish diversity and discover potentially trawlable seabeds in the sandy-bottomed Gulf of Guinea, the researchers shrugged off the discovery at the time, burying the find in a brief paragraph in a 130-something-page report. 20世纪60年代，在西非贝宁海岸进行捕捞调查的人员在渔网中打捞出了珊瑚头。当时，这些研究人员受当地政府雇佣，旨在评估几内亚湾沙质海底的鱼类多样性并寻找可供拖网捕捞的海床。然而，他们当时并未在意这一发现，只是将其草草记录在了一份130多页报告中的简短段落里。

With no surveys since, the scientists who followed had lost track of exactly where the reefs might lie. And as mass bleaching events and overfishing slashed the world’s coral reef area by more than 50 percent since the 1950s, local oceanographers had written off any remnants of a possible reef as dead. 由于此后没有再进行过相关调查，后续的科学家们失去了这些珊瑚礁确切位置的线索。随着20世纪50年代以来大规模白化事件和过度捕捞导致全球珊瑚礁面积减少了50%以上，当地海洋学家已认定任何可能残留的珊瑚礁都已死亡。

More than six decades on, the mystery has been solved as a team of Beninese scientists rediscovered the healthy reef teeming with marine life. At least eight coral types and eight fish species have formed a thriving ecosystem on this long-forgotten site. 六十多年后，随着一支贝宁科学家团队重新发现了这片充满海洋生物的健康珊瑚礁，这个谜团终于被解开。至少有八种珊瑚和八种鱼类在这片被遗忘已久的地点形成了一个生机勃勃的生态系统。

“I was guided by hope. A hope that sometimes there are species or ecosystems which kind of defeat time, or are trying to resist it,” said Gérard Zinzindohoué, the project lead for Coral Reefs Rediscovering & Exploration in Benin. “我被希望所指引。一种希望，即有时会有一些物种或生态系统能够战胜时间，或者正在努力抵御时间的侵蚀，”贝宁珊瑚礁重新发现与探索项目负责人热拉尔·津津多胡埃（Gérard Zinzindohoué）说道。

Fresh off seeing coral for the first time in Cape Verde in 2021, Zinzindohoué asked himself a simple question: Do we have any reefs in Benin? After a colleague passed on the original 1960s report — which mapped out a potential 24-mile-long coral reef barrier along Benin’s coastline — Zinzindohoué recognized a gap in the scientific knowledge: “I realized how little we know about our own coastal environment.” 2021年，在佛得角首次见到珊瑚后，津津多胡埃问了自己一个简单的问题：贝宁有珊瑚礁吗？在一位同事转交了那份20世纪60年代的原始报告（该报告勾勒出贝宁海岸线沿岸可能存在一条24英里长的珊瑚礁屏障）后，津津多胡埃意识到科学认知中存在空白：“我意识到我们对自己海岸环境的了解是多么匮乏。”

But in the years that followed, a string of failed grant applications halted progress on solving the mystery. When he secured a $20,000 National Geographic Explorers grant in January 2025, the project finally ignited. Yet getting the gear was also challenging. The sonar equipment swallowed up almost 80 percent of the grant budget and nearly stalled entirely when the European supplier refused to accept payment from Zinzindohoué’s African bank account. 但在随后的几年里，一系列失败的拨款申请阻碍了揭开谜团的进程。直到2025年1月，当他获得国家地理探险家基金（National Geographic Explorers grant）的2万美元资助时，该项目才终于启动。然而，获取设备的过程也充满挑战。声纳设备耗尽了近80%的预算，而且当欧洲供应商拒绝接受来自津津多胡埃非洲银行账户的付款时，项目几乎陷入停滞。

To complicate matters further, Benin doesn’t have a permanent research vessel. Zinzindohoué therefore had no choice but to seek the help of local fishermen to ferry the team to the suspected site 14 miles offshore and jury-rig the pirogue to accommodate towing the high-tech sonar device. 更复杂的是，贝宁没有常设的研究船。因此，津津多胡埃别无选择，只能寻求当地渔民的帮助，将团队运送到离岸14英里的疑似地点，并临时改装独木舟以拖曳高科技声纳设备。

“The fishermen’s boats are not used to going that far offshore, so it was risky for everyone,” said Zinzindohoué, whose team battled repeated engine failures and months of nausea-filled fieldwork before finally locating two strong sonar echoes pinging from the depths below. “渔民的船只不习惯去那么远的海域，所以这对每个人来说都很冒险，”津津多胡埃说。他的团队在经历了反复的引擎故障和数月令人恶心的野外工作后，终于定位到了来自深海的两个强烈的声纳回波。

National Geographic — whom Zinzindohoué credits with the success of the project — then dispatched a high-resolution deep-sea camera system from their Exploration Technology Lab to investigate the sonar results. While their wooden pirogue bounced atop the offshore swell, the team filmed the seafloor below but had to wait until they returned to dry land to scour the footage. 国家地理（津津多胡埃将项目的成功归功于他们）随后从其探索技术实验室派遣了一套高分辨率深海摄像系统来调查声纳结果。当他们的木制独木舟在近海涌浪上颠簸时，团队拍摄了下方的海床，但必须等到回到陆地后才能仔细查看录像。

What they had captured was a wealth of marine life: six types of soft coral; two black corals; and eight species of sheltering fish, from golden African snappers to the Monrovia doctorfish. 他们捕捉到的是丰富的海洋生物：六种软珊瑚、两种黑珊瑚，以及八种栖息的鱼类，从金色的非洲笛鲷到蒙罗维亚刺尾鱼。

When the first images came through, Zinzindohoué texted Houangninan Midinoudewa, an oceanographic researcher at the Benin Marine Conservation Club and the same friend who first told Zinzindohoué of the 1960s report. 当第一批图像传回时，津津多胡埃给贝宁海洋保护俱乐部的海洋研究员、也是最初告诉他那份60年代报告的朋友——胡昂尼南·米迪努德瓦（Houangninan Midinoudewa）发了短信。

Midinoudewa remembers the moment: “I said, ‘Bro, 60 years later we are now discovering exactly what we have in our water.’ We found it still alive, producing more fish for communities and supporting livelihoods. I was really joyful and really overwhelmed.” 米迪努德瓦回忆起那一刻：“我说，‘兄弟，60年后我们终于发现了我们水域里到底有什么。’我们发现它依然活着，为社区繁衍了更多鱼类，并支撑着人们的生计。我真的非常高兴，也非常激动。”

While no coral samples have yet been extracted, researchers have classified the site as a mesophotic coral ecosystem (MCE). Such systems are light-dependent communities existing at the lower limits of reef-building corals. At more than 175 feet below the surface, the coral garden they discovered appears patchily scattered on a rocky substrate. 虽然目前尚未提取珊瑚样本，但研究人员已将该地点归类为中光珊瑚生态系统（MCE）。这类系统是存在于造礁珊瑚下限、依赖光线的群落。在海面以下175英尺处，他们发现的珊瑚花园呈斑块状分布在岩石基质上。

Bridging the gap between shallow reefs and deeper benthic habitats, MCEs are home to distinct species and unique environmental conditions. While scientists are increasingly recognizing their ecological and climatic importance, they remain among the least explored elements of tropical and subtropical marine biodiversity. And this one has real potential to unlock new information about coral history. 作为浅水珊瑚礁和深海底栖生境之间的桥梁，中光珊瑚生态系统拥有独特的物种和环境条件。尽管科学家们越来越认识到它们在生态和气候方面的重要性，但它们仍然是热带和亚热带海洋生物多样性中探索最少的领域之一。而这片珊瑚礁确实有潜力揭示关于珊瑚历史的新信息。

“Since it’s an undisturbed marine ecosystem, it can help through carbon dating or paleoclimatic study to tell us which kind of climate system has occurred here in the past,” said Zinzindohoué. “It’s better to know the past to help explain the present, and help know which kind of direction we can take in the future.” “由于这是一个未受干扰的海洋生态系统，它可以通过碳测年或古气候研究，告诉我们过去这里发生过什么样的气候系统，”津津多胡埃说。“了解过去有助于解释现在，并帮助我们明确未来可以采取的方向。”

In addition to the blackbar soldierfish, West African goatfish, and Guinean angelfish filmed darting through the reef, the discovery presents potential conservation claims for other marine life. “We will be advocating for its full protection, perhaps by setting up a marine protected area around it,” said Midinoudewa, who specializes in elasmobranchs — the study of sharks, rays, and skates. 除了拍摄到在珊瑚礁间穿梭的黑带金鳞鱼、西非羊鱼和几内亚神仙鱼外，这一发现还为其他海洋生物的保护提供了潜在依据。“我们将倡导对其进行全面保护，或许可以通过在其周围建立一个海洋保护区来实现，”专门研究板鳃亚纲（鲨鱼、鳐鱼和鳐类）的米迪努德瓦说。

Midinoudewa is currently submitting an application to designate the area as an Important Shark and Ray Area with the International Union for Conservation of Nature. Based on the knowledge of local fishermen, Midinoudewa is confident the reef is home to sawback angel sharks, silky sharks, brown skates, and marbled stingrays. The team behind the discovery hopes this will spark a wave of similar discoveries in the waters off West Africa. 米迪努德瓦目前正在向国际自然保护联盟（IUCN）提交申请，将该区域指定为“重要鲨鱼和鳐鱼栖息地”。根据当地渔民的知识，米迪努德瓦确信这片珊瑚礁是锯背天使鲨、丝鲨、褐鳐和云纹魟的家园。发现这一珊瑚礁的团队希望，这能引发西非海域一系列类似的发现浪潮。