Sponge Hunting in Northern Patagonia
Taxonomy, phylogeny and biogeography of sponges of the Fjords of Southern Chile
From February 19 to March 14, almost a year after a first expedition in April 2004, Philippe WILLENZ is returning to the Fjords of Northern Chilean Patagonia to join an international team of sponge taxonomists. The aim of this exploration is to develop a first inventory of the sponge biodiversity of this region. Although sponges are a dominant group of marine benthos, only 140 species are known from the coast of Chile. Several regions of the coast are still unexplored by scuba diving. The fauna of Fjord Comau and Fjord Quintupeu were totally unexplored before last year. From the Demosponge samples collected down to 30 m in 2004, it appears that the biodiversity is quite larger than expected. This is the reason it was decided to complete this inventory in the vicinity of Huinay during the first week of the mission. A further two week trip to Chiloe Island and Melinka Island has been planned this year.
Click here for the itinerary (the diving sites are marked by '
').
