Plazi
Info
The intensely colored soft coral was covered and photographed at a depth of 164 meters in the estuary of Bahía Blanca, Buenos Aires, Argentina, with the help of the research vessel "Undine".
The coral has also been sighted in other nearshore areas at greater depths:
- Rio de La Plata estuary, Argentina (278-282 meters).
- Polonio Cape, Uruguay (400 meters)
- Messier Canal, Chile (320 meters)
Estuaries are ideal settlement areas for azooxanthellate corals, because the freshwater currents flowing into the sea flush a lot of nutrients into the ocean, which provide a particularly rich plankton supply.
However, an excessive input of nutrients can also easily lead to excessive algal growth, which can take over the settlement space of corals and easily overgrow the corals.
In the case of Alcyonium haddoni, however, this does not matter because there is not enough daylight for algae photosynthesis at the depths where the soft coral is found,
The pictured many-lobed soft coral was 7.1 cm high, stalk and polyparium were not clearly distinguishable.
The polyps evenly cover the surface of the polyparium, they are completely retractable, however, calyxes were not present.
The species name "haddoni" honors the British anthropologist and zoologist Alfred Cort Haddon (* May 24, 1855 in London; † April 20, 1940 in Cambridge), after whom the large carpet anemone Stichodactyla haddoni was also named.
Source:
Pérez, Carlos Daniel & Zamponi, Mauricio Oscar, 2004,
New records of octocorals (Cnidaria, Anthozoa) from the south western Atlantic Ocean, with zoogeographic considerations,
Zootaxa 630, pp. 1-12 : 4
https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3509648
The coral has also been sighted in other nearshore areas at greater depths:
- Rio de La Plata estuary, Argentina (278-282 meters).
- Polonio Cape, Uruguay (400 meters)
- Messier Canal, Chile (320 meters)
Estuaries are ideal settlement areas for azooxanthellate corals, because the freshwater currents flowing into the sea flush a lot of nutrients into the ocean, which provide a particularly rich plankton supply.
However, an excessive input of nutrients can also easily lead to excessive algal growth, which can take over the settlement space of corals and easily overgrow the corals.
In the case of Alcyonium haddoni, however, this does not matter because there is not enough daylight for algae photosynthesis at the depths where the soft coral is found,
The pictured many-lobed soft coral was 7.1 cm high, stalk and polyparium were not clearly distinguishable.
The polyps evenly cover the surface of the polyparium, they are completely retractable, however, calyxes were not present.
The species name "haddoni" honors the British anthropologist and zoologist Alfred Cort Haddon (* May 24, 1855 in London; † April 20, 1940 in Cambridge), after whom the large carpet anemone Stichodactyla haddoni was also named.
Source:
Pérez, Carlos Daniel & Zamponi, Mauricio Oscar, 2004,
New records of octocorals (Cnidaria, Anthozoa) from the south western Atlantic Ocean, with zoogeographic considerations,
Zootaxa 630, pp. 1-12 : 4
https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3509648
