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Oct 8 2012 - 12:58pm
A coral (Montastraea faveolata) has just spawned. Each of the hundreds of polyps living in the colony releases a small pink bundle of sperm and eggs. Read more about coral spawing and watch a spawning event.
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Jul 27 2011 - 11:07am
Dr.
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Mar 15 2013 - 9:07am
Corals are sedentery animals, so how do they reproduce? One way is sexually through spawning, when the corals release eggs and sperm into the water (often at the same time due to some sort of trigger). External sexual reproduction occurs when colonies of coral release huge numbers of eggs and sperm...
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Jan 14 2011 - 12:27pm
Corals are not only found in shallow tropical waters, but in cold, dark, deep areas of the sea. Amazing coral forests are found at depths of 60-3,050 meters (200-10,00 feet). They support an abundance of marine life but are in peril from threats such as ocean acidification and bottom trawl fishing...
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Jun 7 2011 - 12:45pm
Tree corals like this Calyptrophora bayer can grow several meters high and resemble brightly colored trees. This deep-sea coral was found 1,683 m (5,522 ft) deep on the Davidson Seamount. See more pictures of coral in our Deep-sea Corals article.
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Jun 7 2011 - 1:07pm
A marine scientist performs a genetic analysis on a sample of deep-sea coral to find out if it is a known species or one new to science. Find out how ocean scientists study deep-sea corals in our Deep-sea Corals article.
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Oct 5 2012 - 3:42pm
These corals from the Smithsonian collections are Stephanocyathus (A.) spiniger, a solitary, deep-water stony coral species. Around 74% of all deep-water corals are solitary, living as individual organisms instead of forming large colonies like most shallow-water corals. This one has six long...
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Jun 7 2011 - 9:28am
Ocean scientists safely travel to deep-sea coral ecosystems up to 3,000 m (9,843 ft) below the ocean’s surface inside the Johnson-Sea-Link, a submersible owned and operated by the Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institution. Explore more in the multimedia feature "Coral Gardens of the Deep...
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Nov 2 2012 - 11:06am
Dead man’s fingers (Alcyonium digitatum) are soft corals named for their appendage-like appearance when thrown ashore by storms. The finger-like clumps of coral polyps come in various shades of pink, orange, white, grey, or yellow and are found along the northern Atlantic coasts of Europe and North...
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Mar 20 2013 - 11:52am
Boring sponges get a bad rap. Their own name betrays them, announcing to the world that they are unexciting, ordinary and quite frankly, boring. However, if ever a misnomer existed, this is it.
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Apr 14 2011 - 11:19pm
A photo taken at a reef near Bocas del Toro, Panama. The reef suffered a mass bleaching event in the summer of 2010, when water temperatures were unusually high. In this photo, healthy brown coral gives way to the frontlines of disease.
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Jun 1 2010 - 7:50pm
When you are shopping for gifts and jewelry, steer clear of gifts that use real coral or other marine animal products. Deepwater pink and red corals in particular have been prized for their beauty in jewelry making, but they belong in the sea, not in our homes. Visit SeaWeb’s Too Precious to Wear...
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Aug 2 2012 - 3:11pm
Branching corals, because of their more fragile structure, struggle to live in acidified waters that surround the volcanic CO2 seeps of Papua New Guinea.
Read more about how reef scientist Laetitia Plaisance uses carbon dioxide seepsocean acidification and how it will affect biodiversity on coral...
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Aug 2 2012 - 3:34pm
Nestled among the beautiful coral reefs of Papua New Guinea (PNG) is a place that could provide the key to our understanding of one of the biggest threats to coral reef survival: Ocean Acidification. Here cool carbon dioxide naturally bubbles out of volcanic cracks in the shallow sea floor and...
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Jul 27 2011 - 9:27am
Deep-sea corals scientist Dr. J. Murray Roberts photographed these living polyps from the Mingulay Reef Complex off Scotland in aquaria in 2010.
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Oct 14 2010 - 5:48pm
Local yarn and craft shops were highly involved in creating the Smithsonian Community Reef—the local community’s accompaniment to the Hyperbolic Crochet Coral Reef exhibit. The HCCR, created by Margaret and Christine Wertheim of the Institute For Figuring, was on display in the Sant Ocean Hall from...
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Jun 7 2011 - 11:30am
This specimen of the deep-sea coral Desmophyllum dianthus shows the visible bands that help marine scientists learn how ocean conditions changed over time. By looking at the thickness of each band, scientists can estimate how much the corals grew during a given time period. This information sheds...
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Jun 7 2011 - 1:15pm
Smithsonian zoologist Dr. Steve Cairns named and described this deep-sea coral species, Stephanocyathus paliferus, which is now preserved in the collections of the National Museum of Natural History. The specimens will contribute to future research about deep sea corals. Collection cards record...
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Jun 6 2011 - 12:11pm
A squat lobster and blackbelly rosefish find shelter on a Lophelia pertusa coral reef off the southeastern United States. The Johnson-Sea-Link submersible captured this image in 2009.
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Nov 21 2012 - 10:19am
New, white growth emerges from a living deep-sea coral sample that was stained pink, enabling ocean scientists to measure its coral growth rate. Find out more about how ocean scientists study deep-sea corals in our Deep-sea Corals article.
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Jul 27 2011 - 9:54am
Imagine you’re an alien seeing Planet Earth for the first time. What do you see from your spacecraft? A blue planet with over 70% of its surface covered by ocean. From space it’s obvious how important the ocean is to our planet. But we actually know very little about what lives at the bottom of the...
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Jul 22 2011 - 11:13am
Discover some amazing corals in this footage that shows and identifies a range of deep-sea coral species from the Juan de Fuca Canyon off the Olympic coast and the Davidson Seamount, an underwater volcano outside the boundary of the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary in the Pacific Ocean....
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Jun 7 2011 - 12:16pm
A thicket of white stony coral (Lophelia pertusa) shelters a squat lobster (Eumunida picta). This is the typical shape of this widespread species of deep-sea coral. See more pictures of coral in our Deep-sea Corals article.
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Jun 7 2011 - 1:11pm
Searching for useful chemicals, marine scientists grow bacteria associated with deep-sea coral on nutrient agar to identify the bacteria and test their metabolic and biochemical capabilities. Some may be sources of potential medicines. Learn more about how ocean scientists study deep-sea corals in...
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