Most of the deep sea exploration stories we hear about has to do with the mobile, megafauna like deep sea squids, octopus, jellyfish and the like. However a new report seen on National Geographic features at least one super nice unusual deepwater stony coral, Stephanocyathus platypus of the Azoox variety like Dendrophyllia and Rhizotrochus. Strangely enough though, Stephanocyathus as a member of the family Caryophyllidae it is more closely related to elegance corals than most of the Azoox stony coral we are with which we are familiar. Other notable marine creatures documented in the deep sea research includes a colonial zoanthid that lives on a hermit crab like staghorn hermits and fire coral, a large menacing looking annelid worm and some weird ‘Snake Stars’, a type of serpent starfish with really long arms used to catch food and wrap around their coral host. [National Geographic]
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