palmate sea fan
Leptogorgia palma
The palmate sea fan (Leptogorgia palma) is a species of gorgonian sea fan in the family Gorgoniidae.
From the article Palmate sea fan on Wikipedia (CC BY-SA), quoted section by section
Description
This fan grows up to 2 meters in total height and is bright red. It has small white polyps which retract into slits in the colony when not feeding. It has branches which fork from the central flattened trunk.
Range & habitat
This sea fan is found only around the South African coast from the Cape Peninsula to Sodwana in 10–100 m of water. It is endemic to this region.
Wikipedia: “Distribution”
What it does
This fan is very slow-growing, at only 15mm per year, so large colonies may be more than 100 years old. It is eaten by a sponge crab (Pseudodromia latens), and a topshell snail (Calliostoma ornatum).
== References ==
Wikipedia: “Ecology”
Where it lives
Recorded sightings
—
geo-referenced records in GBIF, from museums, herbaria and field observers.
Drag the globe to turn it. Dots are where records exist, not a range map; darker means more records.
In the stacks
Searching the stacks…
Every page naming Leptogorgia palma in the Biodiversity Heritage Library →
This page is assembled live from iNaturalist, GBIF, Wikipedia, the Source Library and the Internet Archive. It is not yet part of the hand-edited codex. iNaturalist taxon 672683.