Maldives Marine Life

Marine life of Maldivian waters

← All species
Scytalium soft corals (no English common name)
No photo available
Photo: Tom Heijnen / iNaturalist, CC BY 4.0 (view on iNaturalist)iNaturalist research-grade observation. Shows Scytalium tentaculatum. Coral photo: species not verifiable from image.

Scytalium soft corals (no English common name)

Scytalium

Genus-level entry: species are told apart only by microscopic features (sclerites). Valid genus (WoRMS, AphiaID 205981, checked 2026-10-31). Species recorded from the Maldives: Scytalium martensii.

Possibly present in the Maldives

English
Scytalium soft corals (no English common name)
Scientific
Scytalium
Dhivehi
No recorded Dhivehi name
Group
Soft corals and sea fans
Family
Virgulariidae (sea pens)
IUCN status
NE · Not EvaluatedNot Evaluated (NE) as a genus; most species not assessed
Record in the Maldives
Possibly present

Description

A sea pen: a feather-shaped octocoral that anchors in soft bottoms with a fleshy stalk. In the Maldives it is known from specimens and literature records from deep water, below normal diving depth. Species are told apart only by microscopic features.

In the Maldives

Recorded from the Maldives: museum specimens (n=1). Only one kind of evidence was found, so it is listed as possibly present.

Sources

Dhivehi name source: No species-level Dhivehi name found in Dhivehi Wikipedia, SeaLifeBase (country: Maldives) or MRS/MMRI invertebrate publications.