A team of oceanographers has discovered a thriving deep-water coral reef off the coast of Benin, overturning a 60-year-old scientific belief that the ecosystem was dead.
Led by Gérard Zinzindohoué, the researchers mapped a mesophotic coral ecosystem located 54 meters below the surface in the Gulf of Guinea.
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Surveys conducted between April and December 2025 identified two patches of rocky seafloor habitat spanning roughly seven kilometers.
Using side-scan sonar and underwater cameras, the team captured footage revealing a complex garden hosting at least six soft octocoral forms, two black coral types, and eight fish species.
Among the fish observed were golden African snappers, blackbar soldierfish, Guinean angelfish, West African goatfish, Monrovia doctorfish, three-banded butterflyfish, and two damselfish species.
Challenging Historical Assumptions
Historical fishing surveys from the 1960s had originally detected the deep-water formation, but researchers at the time concluded the site was devoid of life.
Armed with a $20,000 National Geographic Explorers grant, Zinzindohoué's team partnered with local fishermen to deploy high-resolution underwater drones and deep-sea cameras across the site 14 miles offshore.
Zinzindohoué, an oceanographer at the Institut de Recherches Halieutiques et Océanologiques du Bénin, described the grueling fieldwork behind the discovery.
"It was not an easy field campaign," he said. "It was a mix of long days at sea, technical problems, and a lot of uncertainty.
But then we saw structures on the sonar that looked like they could be reef signatures, which gave us hope that we were close."
