I love these octocorals. They're just so beautiful.
They're called Iridogorgia magnispiralis. For fairly obvious reasons, they form these
major spirals and so this particular coral, which I believe is the shorter of the two
that we can see in this frame. It's probably at least a couple of meters
high. The tallest known, or the longest known octocoral
I believe is an Iridogorgia and that was, I'm pretty sure, more than five
meters tall in the Pacific. Wow.
I can believe it. These Iridogorgia are so tall and dwarf a lot of the other coral species
that we see. One thing that's interesting is that they're
in the family Chrysogorgiidae. All the species in that family have this interesting
geometrical aspect to them and they're usually quite specific in the
angle of branching and the Iridogorgia are nice because they have those smooth curves
that you described earlier. Just so beautiful to look at. Very hypnotizing.
Very. Very much. Very different from anything we've seen so
far in this expedition, where the corals are either these beautiful fan-shaped or straight
up and down whip corals. These are Iridogorgia magnispiralis.
Just beautiful.