Animal profile

Red Coral

Corallium rubrum

AnthozoaShaded rocky walls, overhangs and caves of the MediterraneanEndangered

Field profile

Red coral is a slow-growing octocoral that builds a hard red skeleton of calcite. It has been harvested for jewellery around the Mediterranean since antiquity. Colonies form small branched trees on shaded rock rather than reef structure.

Published field notes

2026-03-16

Red Coral

Precious red coral builds no reef at all

The red coral of Mediterranean jewellery is an octocoral with eight-tentacled polyps and a solid calcite core. It hosts no photosynthetic algae, grows in the dark under overhangs, and adds well under a millimetre of branch length in a year.

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