Underwater Reef Cam - Red Sea, Thuwal, Saudi Arabia

Schools of wild reef fish drift past this underwater camera in a protected stretch of the Red Sea (البحر الأحمر) off Thuwal, on Saudi Arabia's west coast north of Jeddah, where sunlight filters down through warm, clear water onto the reef.

The Red Sea is about 1,240 miles (2,000 km) long and up to 6,560 feet (2,000 m) deep. It began forming about 38 million years ago, as Africa and Arabia slowly pulled apart, and it's saltier than the Indian Ocean next door.

Its only link to the ocean is the narrow Bab el-Mandeb strait in the south, just 18 miles (29 km) wide. That partial isolation means around a fifth of the fish and invertebrates here live nowhere else on Earth.

Did You Know? About half of the Red Sea's butterflyfish, dottybacks and triplefin blennies are found only in this region.

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