The incredible marine biodiversity of the Puerto del Carmen coastline has a new member and our municipality bears its name.

It is not usual for a new species to bear the name of the town where it was discovered and the authors of the scientific article, Jesús Ortea (BOS Department, University of Oviedo) and Leopoldo Moro (Biodiversity Service of the Government of the Canary Islands) argue so in etymology:

"Dedicated to the Municipality of Tias, for its commitment to publicize and raise awareness about the importance of conserving the Cagafrecho Special Conservation Zone, through the ZEConsciente Project."

Yes, our ZEConsciente project that gives us so much joy and of which we are so proud, in which the environment, culture and tourism areas of this council are working very hard; has just received a very special recognition from the scientific community. It is an honor for us that this new sea slug bears the name of our municipality.

Behind this discovery there are more than 40 years of constant and meticulous work inventorying the sea slugs of the Canary Islands and species of the genus Lomanus Verany, 1844 had never been collected. The material studied in this work was collected by Dennis Rabeling, a RedPROMAR collaborator, using autonomous diving techniques with underwater photographs of the animal in its habitat. At the end of November of last year Dennis found two specimens of 2 and 1.8 mm long by 1 mm wide collected at 6 m. deep between tussock red algae with sediments.

This discovery is the result of the cooperative efforts of many citizens, it is a good example of the usefulness of regular and continuous sampling through Citizen Science, an initiative promoted by the Network of Observers of the Canary Islands Marine Environment (RedPROMAR). Observers such as Dennis Rabeling who, as the authors of the paper report: "with his enthusiasm, perseverance and desire for knowledge, has exponentially increased the inventory of marine biota of the ZEC ES7011002 "Cagafrecho" that bathes the coast of the Municipality of Tías". Lanzarote

Long live ZEConsciente!

By clicking here you can download the full article published by Avicennia magazine in Spanish.