Underwater footage of marine life is always cool, but underwater footage depicting species that are rarely seen is even cooler. The Mediterranean monk seal is one such species, and scientists have recorded the pinnipeds — the family of fin-footed mammals made up of seals and walruses — in a secret hiding spot.
The footage was captured by researchers from the Tethys Research Institute and the Octopus Foundation, who were investigating monk seal activity around the shores of Greece’s Ioanian Islands. It confirmed suspicions that the animals are using underwater caves with pockets of air, known as bubble caves, as safe resting spaces away from humans.
WATCH: Mediterranean monks seals hide out in a bubble cave near a Greek shoreline
To monitor the monk seals, the researchers mounted an underwater TrendNet camera inside a Blue Robotics watertight case in July 2020, installing it at the flooded entrance of a bubble cave. The camera snapped an image every 5 seconds for 16 days, with a “sturdier” camera deployed in the same location a year later that functioned for 125 days.
Speaking to IFLScience, Julien Pfyffer, study author and president of the Octopus Foundation, said: “When we discovered remotely that several seals were inspecting the waterproof camera less than an hour after we installed it, we were really amazed.
"Very quickly, we had this ‘eureka moment’ because we were looking at the factual confirmation of the intuition they might be hiding somewhere.”
Beach sightings of Mediterranean monk seals have decreased due to historical overhunting and human encroachment on breeding sites.
There are now estimated to be as few as 2,000 left in the wild, with the Mediterranean monk seal being one of just two surviving variants — the other being the Hawaiian monk seal — and its population is thought to number around 800 individuals.
The researchers are now putting forward the study and video footage as evidence that bubble caves, which are often considered marginal habitats, should be treated as primary pupping caves in Mediterranean monk seal habitat suitability assessments.
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