Cathedral Cave, Eaglehawk, Tasmania

The second leg of the Leverhulme Trust #moleculesmeetfossils fieldwork to collect marine Bryozoa from Tasmania, was every bit as successful as the first leg at Heron Island, Great Barrier Reef. The Tasmanian fauna is very different and dominated by the Cyclostome Bryozoa, the oldest group within the phylum. At Cathedral Cave, this usually deep water fauna can be seen in the cave system in 15-20m of water, and so intact samples can be carefully hand collected by divers for analysis of the morphological features for taxonomy and species descriptions, as well as decent quantities of healthy tissue for DNA analysis. The video clip shows Dr Joanne Porter of Heriot Watt Scientific Divers looking carefully for selected species to sample, the film is made by Dr Andrea Waeschenbach of the Natural History Museum London. We hope you can get some sense of what a world class dive location and unusual fauna this is. Many thanks to Karen Gowlett Holmes and boat skipper Mick, along with safety divers Pauline and Ben Nuttens, of Eaglehawk Dive Centre, whose advice and support meant that we were able to successfully achieve the goal of this mission :). #YOTS

Posted by Heriot Watt Scientific Divers on Friday, 26 January 2018