Black Corals

Black Corals are so called not for their brilliantly coloured living tissues, but their skeleton that is distinctive black or dark brown.

Some species of Black Corals have been known to live to thousand of years with a report mentioning specimen of Leiopathes glaberrima collected from a depth of 450 m (1,500 ft) off Hawaii was estimated by radiocarbon dating in 2006 to have an age of around 2377 years. More recently, another Hawaiian specimen of Leiopathes glaberrima, the central portion of a basal holdfast, was found to have an age of 4265 (±44) years, and is believed to be the oldest recorded marine organism.