A rare coral species never seen before is growing in the water of the deep, cold Pacific a few miles offshore from the Sonoma County coast.
Unlike the corals that form spectacular reefs in the shallow waters of tropical oceans, the bone-white animal that biologist Gary Williams discovered is a solitary creature barely 15inches tall, with a thousand mouths that feed on microscopic plankton borne by the current flowing past its whip-like stalk.
It is one of more than 5,000 coral species that thrive in the oceans from Alaska to Antarctica and that come in all kinds of colors — from vivid blue and green to yellow, orange and various shades of pink and red.
Williams, of the California Academy of Sciences in Golden Gate Park, found the new species in a rocky area of the sea floor about 30 miles west of Jenner in what is now the Greater Farallones National Marine Sanctuary. The new coral is flourishing amid an abundance of other animals that include starfish, sea worms, snails, sponges, sea cucumbers, crabs, nurseries of catsharks and skates, and at least 34 varieties of other fish.read more
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