A Leiopathes black coral colony at 425 meters depth on the West Florida escarpment.
Black Coral Colony
Image courtesy of the NOAA Office of Ocean Exploration and Research, Gulf of Mexico Expedition 2012. Download larger version (jpg, 954 KB).

A Leiopathes black coralcolony at 425 meters depth on the West Florida escarpment. Red lasers are visible on the branches and polyps near the middle of the screen, 10 centimeters apart. They indicate that this basal axis of the colony is about 1.7 centimeters in diameter. This suggests an age between 400-1000 years old, based on published growth rates for black corals in the Gulf of Mexico (Prouty et. al, 2011).

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