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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.

Date Taken

April 2016

 
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