Red coral

How it lives

A colony is a fixed, branching skeleton of hard calcium carbonate coloured red by carotenoid pigments, with retractable white polyps. It grows very slowly: about 0.3 to 0.5 mm of basal diameter a year, or 0.293 mm a year in north-western Sardinian stocks. PLOS ONE says recovery after disturbance can take decades to centuries. It prefers dim places such as cave walls, cliffs and overhangs, and SeaLifeBase says water warmer than 24 C can cause critical mortality. It is reported from about 5 m to more than 1,000 m, mostly shallower than 100 m, and shallow groups have been heavily harvested.

Where it goes

Adult colonies are fixed to rock and do not move. As in its class, octocorals release gametes that develop into planktonic planula larvae, which settle on the seabed.

We only draw a journey on the map when scientists have tracked it or clearly documented it. For this animal we have not found one yet.

Populations

The species is Not Evaluated globally on the IUCN Red List (SeaLifeBase and GBIF). For the Mediterranean it is listed as Endangered, as stated in a genome paper. In some regions PLOS ONE says it is considered ecologically extinct. In Sardinia, a 2025 study found both stocks depleted, with biomass at 0.53 and 0.41 of the target level, and recommended raising the minimum harvest size from 7 mm to 13 to 15 mm basal diameter. In the Medes Islands reserve, one poaching event in 2002 removed about 60% of biomass. ScienceDaily reported in 2011 that it was not in CITES Appendix II. In Spain, the Menorca Nord marine reserve, declared in 1999 and covering 5,085 ha, lists red coral among its species of conservation interest, with about 628 benthic species recorded.