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The skeleton of a black coral is hard and inert, due to its composition of protein and chitin, making it nearly inedible. Though black coral skeletons have been found in the stomachs of green sea turtles and sharks, these incidents are rare; it has thus been suggested that black corals are not a major part of any vertebrate diets. [9]
Black corals are so called because the main axial skeleton is made of a spiny, keratin-like substance called "antipathin" which is a dark brownish-black. This colonial coral has a bushy, two dimensional form and grows out of a holdfast firmly anchored to a rock. It can grow to 1.5 m (5 ft) tall and a similar width.
White "black coral". Gooseneck barnacles are attached to a branch in the lower right center. In the deep waters off Malta in the Mediterranean Sea, Leiopathes glaberrima is the dominant species in what have been called "coral gardens", where it is associated with other scleractinian corals, gorgonians and zoanthids. The areas are characterised ...
Antipathella fiordensis is a species of colonial coral in the order Antipatharia, the black corals, so named because their calcareous skeletons are black.It was first described as Antipathes fiordensis by the New Zealand zoologist Ken R. Grange in 1990, from material collected in the steep-sided fiords of Fiordland in the southeastern South Island, New Zealand. [3]
Deep-water coral Paragorgia arborea and a Coryphaenoides fish at a depth of 1,255 m (4,117 ft) on the Davidson Seamount. The habitat of deep-water corals, also known as cold-water corals, extends to deeper, darker parts of the oceans than tropical corals, ranging from near the surface to the abyss, beyond 2,000 metres (6,600 ft) where water temperatures may be as cold as 4 °C (39 °F).
Coral species in this genus are commonly known as whip or wire corals because they often exhibit a twisted or coiled morphology. In addition to their colorful appearance, with colors ranging from yellow to red passing through blue and green, these species possess a dark skeleton that is characteristic to every black coral. [1] [2]
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Antipathes is a genus of coral in the order Antipatharia, composed of black coral (so named for its black skeleton). [1] Distinct features vary greatly within this genus: it contains symmetrically aligned as well as irregularly shaped corals, a range of different colors, and colonies that can be either sparsely branched or closely packed.