marine habitats

Small snails and sea urchins come to the boards in droves and destroy everything growing on them. Photo: Maxim Rubin-Blum and Yitzhak Makowsky

Palmachim Disorder: What is hiding hundreds of meters below the surface of the Mediterranean Sea?

Animal habitats have been placed deep in the sea off the coast of Israel. They reveal unique living conditions that have been almost unexplored.
A close-up photo of the tube's shell openings. Photography by Ayelet Nir

A snail without limits

The 'pipe builder' snail was awarded the title of 'environmental engineer', in light of its contribution to the construction of rocky surfaces on the coastline and reducing their rate of weathering in an effective way. It came to the brink of extinction, but researchers from Ben Gurion University succeeded