Susanne Bähr began her career studying tiny coral-dwelling crabs that spend their lives tucked away inside living corals. What started as curiosity about these overlooked reef residents led to discoveries showing they may play a much bigger role in coral reef health than anyone realized. Along the way, she even helped uncover a surprising secret: some of these crabs use fluorescence to hide in plain sight.
Today, Susanne is a postdoctoral researcher at the California Academy of Sciences, where she has traded shallow coral reefs for one of the ocean’s least explored frontiers: the mesophotic zone, often called the “twilight reef.”
These reefs lie far below the depths reached by most divers, in a dimly lit world between roughly 30 and 150 meters deep. Reaching them requires highly specialized closed-circuit rebreathers, careful planning, and a willingness to venture into places that remain largely unexplored.
Susanne’s current work focuses on tiny artificial reefs called Autonomous Reef Monitoring Structures, or ARMS. These underwater “hotels” have been quietly collecting marine life for nearly a decade across the Pacific. Now, as researchers retrieve them, they’re uncovering an astonishing hidden world of cryptic animals, previously undocumented communities, and even entirely new species.
It’s a reminder that even in 2026, some of the biggest discoveries in marine biology aren’t happening on distant planets—they’re happening in the depths of our own ocean.