Family: Gorgoniidae

Common Name(s): Slimy sea plume

Colony Form: Plumose, pinnate, to 1.5 m tall.

Axis: Cylindrical

Branches: Pinnules long, flexible, regularly-spaced, flat or triangular in cross section, <5 mm across, usually in pairs on opposite sides of main branch.

Apertures: Flush but can appear bulbous; restricted to row along flattened sides of pinnules. Polyps contract slowly and often remain expanded when preserved.

Mucus: Copious; colonies very slimy.

Color: Purple to beige tan; dries purple, brown, beige, tan, pale yellow.

Sclerites: Polyp armature: small rods with rounded knobs; no flat rods. Body wall: scaphoids (curved sclerites) strongly curved with sharp ends often recurved outward, and with convex profile finely spiny; spindles acute, large and ornately sculptured, to 0.4 mm long.

Habitat: Shallow hard bottoms to deep reefs in clear water; 1-50 m.

Distribution: Bermuda, South Florida, Bahamas, Antilles.

Notes: Williams and Chen (2012) transferred all Western Atlantic species of Pseudopterogorgia to the genus Antillogorgia. Although Antillogorgia americana produces a number of secondary metabolites that appear to have anti-predator functions (Epifanio et al. 2007), it still may be preyed upon by the flamingo tongue gastropod, Cyphoma gibbosum, which preferentially consumes axial tissues near the base of colonies (Harvell & Fenical 1989). Bayer (1961) noted that bleaching for sclerite examination breaks the tissue down very slowly and releases far more zooxanthellae than in either A. acerosa or A. rigida.

References: Bayer (1961), Cairns (1977), Harvell & Fenical (1989), Humann & Deloach (2002), Williams & Chen (2012).

Similar Species: Antillogorgia rigida