as though we were flying over the universe. A bird's eyee view of the immensity of the oceans gives us the chance to discover new keys to finding the way to look after our planet better. Reefs are little worlds that still hide undiscovered secrets and attract our attention because of the serenity with which they evolve. Also because the rigors of climate change have still not managed to modify their beauty and attraction. At first sight, these groups of islands appear to offer no more information than their aesthetic quality, the green of their vegetation,

Hidden beneath this outward appearance, however, is a full palette of colors with thousands of different shades making up a work of art that transmits strong emotions. This explosion of color is the Carl Triangle, the corner of the world that is home to the greatest concentration of known marine species. And it wants to explain to us why its ecosystem is better than any other at resisting the global warming that is enveloping our world.

This reef is in an exceptional part of the planet. It receives major water currents from the Pacific and Indian oceans transporting a large quantity of nutrients. They come together in a vast area covering 6 million km which has developed from constant volcanic eruptions throughout history. This point has the largest concentration of volcanoes in the Pacific Ring of Fire and its coastlines have constantly received minerals that the Carls and plants use as fertilizer.

It is not surprising then that 75% of the world's carl species grow here. Carl is fundamental in providing oxygen for the sea and consequently for the growth of species of marine fauna. However, a very large number of its inhabitants have not been given the credit due to them until now. Their role is proving to be essential for keeping life in the sea in good condition. Who are they? They are the animals that live in close connection with the seabed. could imagine that the secret of this ecosystem in the Carl Triangle might be hidden in the sand at the bottom.

Some were certainly aware of this before the scientific community. Now, everyone has started to stir up the sand in search of the secret that it holds. This stargazer has known for centuries that its food is very close to the seabed. This is why it uses it as its den to feed on the large community of benthonic fish that pass by. The term comes from the Greek bentos which means depth. The benthonic organisms are those associated with any seabed. They may be fish, carls or invertebrates.

They use the seabed as their natural habitat to develop and to feed. And they may do it on the surface of the sand or buried underneath it. The most numerous benthonic species are very small like this blenny. It measures less than 5 cm and it lies in weight in its burrow, an opening in the sand on the seabed. Curiously, it lives in a mutually beneficial relationship with a shrimp that devotes all its time and effort to constant cleaning of its friend's home.

This type of fish constitutes almost 40% of the biodiversity on the reef. Although in different locations, the species can vary significantly in certain areas. They normally live in fairly shallow seabeds, but communities have also been discovered at depths greater than 300 m. Even some species of shark can be considered benthonic. One of them is the wabagong or carpet shark. Its name gives us more than a clue that it spends its life on the bottom. During the day, these sharks spend many hours on the seabed or resting in coral formations because they are night feeders. However, they lie and wait for any easy prey that might pass close by their large mouth.

They camouflage themselves excellently with the seabed to avoid being seen. When they are hungry, they move their 3 m long bodies around in search of a suitable place to hunt, normally at sunset. This individual is a tassled wabagong. Its name comes from the beard-like growths hanging from its head that help it to confuse its prey, which thinks it is close to a Carl.

It is almost 2 m long and although it is the slowest of the six catalog species of wabagong, it is also the most aggressive. There are reports of it having attacked divers who get too close. That's not the case here because it lets us move in close. Its ability to camouflage itself with the sandy seabed makes hunting easy. When it finds the perfect spot, it settles down and practically disappears.

The scientific community has underestimated until now the importance of these benthonic species. together with the cryptobenthonic species, a term that adds the characteristics of hidden and concealed to the definition of seabed animals. As we have seen in the previous examples, The average abundance of small fish on this type of reef is calculated in tens of individuals per square meter. If the seabed has a greater quantity of nutrients or natural waste from the marine fauna and carls, the colony of cryptobenthonics can double in size. They move around in small geographical areas and that is the great key to their usefulness because they have an enormous reproductive capacity. Some species can

spawn thousands of young up to seven times a year creating a constant flow of small fish larae. some towards the seabed and a smaller portion swirled around in the currents. And that basically means food for the larger fish. This has demonstrated that the smallest fish are able to create a large quantity of biomass. Most of this biomass is stored in the sand where some species move around avidly in search of their food. One example are these striped eel catfish, adults in this case, which have a lethal sting. They sweep large areas in formation, seeking out larae, invertebrates, and some types of algae.

This way they also contribute to stirring up food from the seabed for other species in a succession of actions that make up the magic circle of the reef's ecosystem. The Carl Triangle is immense. If we take its size into account, we can calculate that it is home to almost 100 million cryptobanthonic creatures. However, their lifespan is so short that they need the magic circle to revolve constantly.

One type of blenny or goi, which is a very similar species, has a lifespan of around 2 months. Perhaps that's why some shrimps make sure that they have a good quality of life and a clean and tidy house at all times. This couple are engrossed in their daily chores. Shrimps are an example of the fact that fish are not the only small cryptobenthonic creatures on the reef.

crustaceians like shrimps also form part of this family. This wide variety of animals and living creatures live clinging onto the seabed. Here we have some Coleman shrimp which live in fire urchins, a brightly colored and venomous species of sea urchin. They keep them clean and make use of the remains of food left behind by the urchin.

They live camouflaged to go unnoticed and usually as a couple. The emperor shrimp prefers to live on top of a nudie brank which it cleans of impurities as it moves around its back. It takes its time, but it gets the job done. And watch out for this coral banded shrimp. Anything that disturbs it is likely to get boxed by those pincers. This shrimp's coloring has earned it the name of the bumblebee shrimp. And this one looks like a piece of popcorn, wouldn't you say? That is precisely the name of this small species of long limbmed shrimp that camouflages itself among polyps of the same color,

the popcorn shrimp. Another variety is the zanzibar shrimp which can mimic each algae or carl on which it moves. It measures no more than a cime and a half. To get an idea of its size, use your fingers to calculate that distance and see exactly how small it is. Most of these crustaceations have a size ranging from half a cime to four or five and can live camouflaged and in symbiosis with other living creatures such as anemmones, carls and even jellyfish. The white spot anemone shrimp is a perfect example. Its transparent body makes it invisible for many fish looking for food and this means it can play with the currents as we see here in this amusing shot.

Even more transparent is the Saras vati shrimp. What it's actually doing is feeding in the current, In fact, shrimps are quite fun crustaceians. Perhaps that's why they get names like the Donald Duck shrimp. Why is that? Well, just look at its bill. It's hard to believe that there's another shrimp here, but there is. It's the hairy shrimp. It varies in size between 2 and 6 mm. Don't blink or you'll miss it. And to complete this look at some of the species of shrimps that fill the coral reef, let's observe one of the most striking species, the harlequin shrimp.

This species is quite unusual. It's one of the largest, measuring 5 cm, and it feeds almost exclusively on starfish. They hunt in pairs and between them they use their powerful pincers to lift one of the starfish's arms and flip it over, rendering any attempt to escape useless. From that moment on, the starfish is at the mercy of the harlequin shrimps. A delicacy like this will keep them in food for months. And as the starfish decomposes, it generates remains that will feed other members of the reef. Many of these shrimps can generate up to 5,000 eggs every 20 or 25 days. Some will develop, but the majority will become food. For example, for the millions of anchovies so numerous that they block

out the light and create fanciful shapes and brilliant reflections with their movements. The anchovies will eat some of the larae produced by the benthonics and in turn will be food for other larger fish. Just one example of how the magic circle of the reef works. Sometimes the seabed fish are very difficult to see. It spends long periods motionless because it feeds on these small benthonic fish that occasionally pass close by. But it also eats buried larae which it uncovers using these movements. The blue spotted ribbon tail ray is one of the most abundant rays to be found on the Carl reefs. As a general rule, it moves around alone during the day, looking for hiding places in caves, under outcrops of lava or carl, and often just leaving its tail

visible as a warning to predators. The end of its tail has an extremely venomous sting. When searching for food, it glides around the seabed, looking once again for small benthonic fish and their young. stirring up the sand with its undulating movement. Rays are solitary animals. Only very rarely are they seen in company, although occasionally a number of individuals converge in areas where food is abundant. It always seeks out dark areas and lies in wait for the small vertebrates that make up its essential diet. One of the most surprising benthonic species is the frogfish. which despite its name is less than 40 cm long. And the same species, but this time

dressed in orange Their camouflage is spectacular with different colors and shades that they use to remain unseen by unsuspecting fish that will end up in their modular stomach. They are also spectacular when hunting. Their dorsal fin has an appendix that they use like a fishing rod. They attract the attention of their prey, which they swallow when they approach the bait at stratospheric speed. Occasionally they hunt fish much larger than them thanks to their mouth which can increase by up to 12 times its original size.

They are some of the most patient species on the reef because nature has not provided them with a swim bladder for swimming. They use their pectoral fins to rest on carls and algae and to thrust themselves around. They're real artists. Frog fish can spawn as many as 300,000 larae when they lay their eggs, and the majority will drift off and become food for other fish. This makes them an important part of the reef's unique feeding ecosystem. A large portion of the larae that float to drift are captured by the anemmones which are also benthonic animals.

They feed on the nutrients carried by the currents as do the crabs. Well, actually this is the evolution of a lobster. It is the porcelain crab. This species is an example of carcinization where a crustation evolves to resemble a crab. Porcelain crabs can be distinguished from true crabs because they do not use their fourth pair of legs to walk and by the long antenna that originate on the front outside of the eyealks. Nevertheless, they have prehistoric origins. Fossils of porcelain crabs have been found dating from the Jurassic period, 140 million years ago.

Despite this, they are fragile and live under the shelter of Carls and anemmones that are poisonous to other animals. They clean them and feed off the remains. The Carl Triangle is home to dozens of species of crabs. This time real crabs. And the diversity is huge. We can see the spider crab or decorator crab. And someone else from the same family, but with a more valiant appearance, the orangutang crab, whose appearance explains its name perfectly, although its body measures just 2 cm. Another crab with a fearsome appearance is the boxing crab, but it devotes itself basically to living in a mutually beneficial relationship with the

anemmones as it moves around the bottom of the sea. Although sometimes it decides to disappear and change its surroundings. Almost half the world's species of reef have their natural habitat in the Carl Triangle. We are now discovering the importance of the species that live on or close to the floor in the process of feeding all the living creatures in the area. They are important for a number of reasons. On the one hand, they provide biomass either in sediment form or from larae that float in the currents.

On the other, they stir up the sediments that are then transported so that other fish only have to open their mouths to feed. In an attempt to avoid this, animals like the nudie branks have coloring that startles animals that see them as possible victims. Can the other fish see the bright colors of the nudies? The reef fish are sensitive to the colors because the shallow depth means the light radiation is greater. The nudie branks or sea slugs have adopted unusual shapes and colors to warn possible predators not to come close because of their toxicity.

This leaves them free to amble around the seabed, feeding on larae and tiny crustaceans. They do this using an abrasive tongue-shaped appendix called a radula, which they use to lick and decompose their food. slow movement also creates a large quantity of biomass because they deposit their own waste in the sand. They normally move by dragging themselves around, but there are some exceptions like the Spanish dancer, the largest of the reef nudie branks. This 40 cm long creature travels around by making these fantastic movements reminiscent of a flamco dancer.

the benthonic animals which develop freely near the bottom and the cryptobenthonics which in simple terms are the creatures that prefer to live hidden. or concealed are the key to maintaining the coral triangle as the reef with the best ability to withstand the consequences of global warming. If this were not the case, there would be a reduction in the number of fish cruising the warm waters of the Indo-acific. The schools of fuseliers speed around the Carl triangle feeding on plankton which is formed by the minute particles of food in suspension created on the reef itself. It is part of the biomass of nutrients.

These big travalis arrive on mass in the areas where food is plentiful. They are very voracious animals and given their average size 60 cm they need a lot of food. or the snappers, large carnivores that devour everything that can be eaten, both fish and plankton. Although it might not appear so, these snappers are actually a meter long. The same applies to the barracudas, which need medium-sized fish to feed on. These last few species feed to survive from the natural work carried out by the benthonic animals. They are pelagic species, which means that they live in the open sea, feeding with no other purpose than to swim in the right direction.

In the Carl Triangle, the paths seem to converge at the same point. It is almost a world in itself, a territory in which nobody wins and nobody loses, encouraging mutually beneficial relationships between species. Just as mother nature has taught us since the beginning, living creatures are born, reproduce, those three moments. Birth, reproduction, and death have their use for life in a wheel which never stops turning if man doesn't prevent it. In the next program, we will meet the pelagic creatures that live in the Carl Triangle. Colonies of larger marine species that have the whole breath of the ocean at their disposal.