In 2020, Deep Blue Exploration's CRUMMA project is selected by the INPN among more than 75 projects. This call for projects aims to improve naturalist knowledge. It is part of the natural heritage inventory mission and the Nature and Landscapes Information System (SINP). It aims to fill gaps in terms of taxa, ecosystems, eras and / or geography, within a framework of knowledge sharing and dissemination.
The CRUMMA program aims to contribute to the inventory of the diversity of CRUstaceans of the Mesophotic reefs of MAyotte CRUMMA. In continuing the DBE strategy, the project focuses on the research, identification and census of free or mutualistic crustaceans (in interaction with a host organism) in different habitats of the mesophotic zone of Mayotte from 30 to 150 m. This project, carried out in the French overseas department of Mayotte, is the first inventory dedicated to the diversity of mesophotic crustaceans using harvesting and observation methods that respect the environment.
APRIL 2023: PLACEMENT OF CRUSTACEAN TRAPS
At the beginning of April 2023, we set small crustacean traps in the hope of catching a few specimens in order to expand the faunal inventory and why not discover undescribed species.
MARCH 2023: A NEW KIND OF crab DISCOVERED!!!
This new type of pagee was photographed on Saturday, 25 March, on a stalagmite dating back more than 20 000 years in a cave at a depth of 75 metres. The description is already underway by Japanese researchers who have recently identified these unknown specimens of science ready from Christmas Island and the Philippines. Publication expected before the end of the year. Unlike the specimens from the islands of the northeast Indian Ocean, the one from Mayotte has typical cavernous characteristics (lack of coloration), which could make him a cousin of the species under description!
DECEMBER 2022: FIRST OBSERVATION IN MAYOTTE
First observation in Mayotte of this magnificent shrimp Stenopus devaneyi photographed in a crevasse at almost 70 meters depth Dr Joseph POUPIN: "It has been described from Nuku-Hiva to the Marquesas, and then rarely reported in other regions of the Indo-Pacific, between Maldives and central Pacific. Debelius in its 2001 guide indicates that it is not known from the western Indian Ocean (East Africa and Mascarene). Your observation proves the opposite and significantly extends the range of this species. The red dot colour is remarkable and the determination in photo only is not in doubt."
