Black Coral

Photo: melissaheres · CC BY-NC

Dense bushes of black coral — which appears white or brown in natural light, with the black skeleton revealed only when cut — festoon Carmen's wall below 20 m, growing to 1.5 m in height and providing critical habitat for brittle stars, gobies, and small crustaceans. As a slow-growing deep-water species, these colonies represent decades of undisturbed growth and indicate the health of this protected, low-impact dive site. The endemic Cortez chub uses the larger bushes as shelter, forming dense resting aggregations that disperse explosively when a predator passes.