Black Coral

Photo: Hexacorallians of the World · CC BY-NC-SA

Black coral trees at Punta Sur wall reach heights of 2 meters or more, representing colonies several hundred years old in an ecosystem that has never experienced collection pressure. They provide critical structural habitat for hawkfish, shrimp, and juvenile fish that shelter in their branches. The density and size of black coral colonies here is a direct indicator of how rarely this wall has been visited — harvested reefs elsewhere in the Caribbean have lost 90 percent or more of their black coral.