WEBVTT

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I love these octocorals.
They're just so beautiful.

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They're called Iridogorgia magnispiralis.
For fairly obvious reasons, they form these

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major spirals and so this particular coral,
which I believe is the shorter of the two

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that we can see in this frame.
It's probably at least a couple of meters

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high.
The tallest known, or the longest known octocoral

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I believe is an Iridogorgia
and that was, I'm pretty sure, more than five

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meters tall in the Pacific.
Wow.

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I can believe it. These Iridogorgia are so
tall and dwarf a lot of the other coral species

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that we see.
One thing that's interesting is that they're

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in the family Chrysogorgiidae.
All the species in that family have this interesting

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geometrical aspect to them
and they're usually quite specific in the

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angle of branching and the Iridogorgia are
nice because they have those smooth curves

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that you described earlier.
Just so beautiful to look at. Very hypnotizing.

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Very. Very much.
Very different from anything we've seen so

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far in this expedition, where the corals are
either these beautiful fan-shaped or straight

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up and down whip corals.
These are Iridogorgia magnispiralis.

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Just beautiful.