Preview
Family
Gorgoniidae
Common Name(s)
Rigid sea plume
Colony Form
Pinnate, plumose, to 1.5 m tall.
Axis
Cylindrical
Branches
Pinnules round, long, tapered near tips, irregularly spaced, stiffer than others in the genus but still flexible.
Apertures
Slit-like to oval, 1 mm across, in single irregular row or multiple series not strongly restricted to sides of pinnules. Also irregularly distributed or in winding row(s) along main branches.
Mucus
None
Color
Pale lavender both alive and preserved; dries tan to white.
Sclerites
Polyp armature: few small simple rods or none. Body wall: scaphoids (curved sclerites) with smooth convex profile and blunt tips bearing clusters of tubercles, 0.07-0.11 mm long; spindles blunt, to 0.13 mm long.
Habitat
On reefs as shallow as 4 m, but typically deeper, 15-50 m.
Distribution
South Florida, Bahamas, West Indies.
Similar Species
Date Taken
April 2016
Notes
Williams and Chen (2012) transferred all Western Atlantic species ofPseudopterogorgia to the genus Antillogorgia. Sanchez & Wirshing (2005) treat A. blanquillensis (Stiasny, 1941) as a junior synonym ofA. rigida. May be preyed upon by the flamingo tongue gastropodCyphoma gibbosum.