REUTERS — A new underwater microscope designed and built by researchers from Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California San Diego has revealed “turf wars” between millimeter-scale coral.
The Benthic Underwater Microscope is a two-part system operated by a diver. It consists of a microscopic imaging unit controlled by an underwater computer.
During underwater experiments, researchers placed different species of coral close to each other on the reef and, using the underwater microscope, observed corals emitting filaments from their guts to attack and destroy the tissue of the other species.
The microscopic video also showed individual polyps on a single coral colony reaching out to touch each other, which the researchers dubbed coral polyp “kissing.”
According to Scripps, the microscope has a high magnification lens, a ring of focused LED lights for fast exposures, fluorescence imaging capabilities, and a flexible tunable lens, similar to the human eye, to change focus for viewing structures in 3-D.
