Costa Rican researchers at the Smithsonian and the
University of Costa Rica named a new coral species, Psammogorgia hookeri, for
Yuri Hooker, biologist and naturalist at the Peruvian University Cayetano
Heredia in Lima, Peru.
Collected by scuba divers from rocky ledges at depths to 25
meters in Peru’s Paracas National Reserve, its hand-sized colonies are slightly
smaller than the colonies of their closest relative. Researchers also found
bits of coral attached to mussels from Independence Bay at a local fish market.