New Zealand-Caribbean

[Geoff Read]

>       If these mussels and corals have only been recently discovered around
> these western Pacific Islands, how do we know they weren't introduced there by
> whaling ships in the 19th Century?---or perhaps even more likely, warships of
> the 20th Century travelling through the Panama Canal from the Caribbean to the
> Western Pacific.  Didn't the zebra mussel get introduced into North America via
> ship ballast water?                 ------ Ken Kinman

Wrong sort of mussel and coral. These Kermadec seamounts aren't land
islands with fringing reefs.  They are recently discovered active or inactive
submarine volcanoes associated with the Pacific-Australia plate
convergence. The tops are 250 m to 1600 m below sealevel.  And the
mussel is a Bathymodiolus species, a hydrothermal specialist genus.


--
  Geoff Read <g.read at niwa.co.nz>
  http://www.annelida.net/