A threatened species of Sea Fan has been bred in captivity by the Horniman Museum and Gardens in London, England. The Pink Sea Fan, Eunicella verrucosa, is native to western Ireland, southwest Britain, West Africa, and the Meditteranean, but is classified as vulnerable by the IUCN.
PhD student Kaila Wheatley Kornblum set about trying to spawn the colonial gorgonian in captivity, under the watchful eyes of Professor Jamie Stevens from the University of Exeter and Dr Jamie Craggs, Principal Aquarium Curator at the Horniman and lead scientist on Project Coral.
Broodstock was collected from a wreck off the coast of Teignmouth, south Devon by a team from the University of Exeter before being moved to the pioneering Project Coral lab at the Horniman Museum aquarium for the captive breeding attempt. Together, they successfully spawned and reared the Pink Sea Fan for the first time in the UK, and it’s another notch in the belt for Jamie Craggs, who has now bred over 50 species of corals.
Dr Craggs said: “This marks the first time this species has been spawned and reared in the UK and is a major step forward in conserving the species.
“It’s wonderful to see the larvae now starting to settle and grow into juvenile sea fans.
“The success of the spawning is thanks to the exceptional husbandry skills of the Horniman Aquarium team, who are working behind the scenes of our popular aquarium on a number of exciting coral research partnerships.”
Pink Sea Fans are believed to have been successfully bred by only one other institution, Lisbon Oceanarium in 2023.
Kaila Wheatley Kornblum (also from the University of Exeter,) said: “It’s absolutely incredible to witness the eggs being expelled and the larvae swimming around.
“This is a ground-breaking achievement and offers us a long-awaited opportunity to expand our knowledge on temperate coral reproduction, especially larval development, and settlement, key areas highlighted by our group’s previous work but unobserved until now.
“This is a big step in our understanding of the species and conservation of the pink sea fan.”
The spawning is part of University of Exeter PhD student Kaila Wheatley Kornblum’s research into the reproduction, larval dispersal, and population connectivity of Eunicella verrucosa.
What we think
You can’t mention any coral ex-situ coral spawning (and successful rearing,) anywhere in the world without Jamie Craggs being mentioned, so we aren’t surprised that Exeter University turned to him and his team to crack the Pink Sea Fan Code and breed it for the first time in the UK.
Although a temperate species, this could also have many positive implications for tropical species husbandry in the aquarium trade, as the team not only cared for them and provided for their needs in terms of nutrition, flow, and lighting, they even spawned and raised them. The NPS coral community will be very interested in how Kaila and the two Jamies did it.
Main image credit: Pink Sea Fan spawning, taken by Kaila Wheatley Kornblum.
