Cartography has us near enough up-to-date on the lay of the land on Earth, but while we can view stretches of land from space, we can still miss out on nuggets of biological phenomena in the finer details. One such golden nugget was recently secured in Northern Cyprus, where researchers found a breeding ground for Mediterranean Monk seals (Hawaiian Monk seals are the eel snorters) that was previously unknown to science.
The discovery, published in the journal Oryx – The International Journal of Conservation, is a rare bit of good news for the world’s most endangered species of seal. Conservationists can now work towards prioritizing caves that should be protected in the region to support the continuation of the population.