Twiggy black coral
Antipathes virgata
Valid name (WoRMS, AphiaID 283936, checked 2026-10-31).
Possibly present in the Maldives
- English
- Twiggy black coral
- Scientific
- Antipathes virgata
- Dhivehi
- No recorded Dhivehi name
- Group
- Black corals
- IUCN status
- NE · Not EvaluatedNot Evaluated (NE)CITES Appendix II
- Record in the Maldives
- Possibly present
Description
A black coral: a colony with a dark, horny, flexible skeleton covered in a thin living tissue that is usually white, grey, yellow or brownish, so the colony itself rarely looks black. Colonies branch like small bushes or fans and grow mostly on steep walls and in deeper water. It is told apart from related species only by close examination of the skeleton.
In the Maldives
Recorded from the Maldives: literature records via OBIS (Hexacorallians of the World (Fautin 2013)). Only one kind of evidence was found, so it is listed as possibly present.
Sources
- sealifebase.se /summary/Antipathes-virgata.html
- marinespecies.org /aphia.php?p=taxdetails&id=283936
Dhivehi name source: No species-level Dhivehi name found in Dhivehi Wikipedia, SeaLifeBase (country: Maldives) or MRS/MMRI invertebrate publications.