Nephtheid Soft Corals - Fire in the Night

by B. N. Sullivan

This past week I began a series about soft corals in the Nephtheidae family, arguably some of the most beautifully colored marine life on the planet. I mentioned that these corals come in a wide variety of colors, and that while they sometimes look like plants, they are in fact colonies of small animals -- coral polyps -- that arrange themselves in bundles on a stalk or stem.

I have a big problem with these corals: There are so many wonderful colors and varieties that I can't stop taking pictures of them!

The colors range from pastel pale, to richly saturated, to just plain knock-your-eyes-out. Today, we'll show you a few that we call "Fire in the Night" -- brilliant reds, oranges and golds.

I took all of the photos on this page during night dives in the Red Sea. These Nephtheid varieties feed mostly at night, so that is when they are plumped up and looking their best, with their feathery tentacles extended like flower petals. Click on any of the photos to enlarge and see more detail.

The first photo on this page is a a soft coral that had attached itself to the underside of a ledge. This bright red and yellow color combination is, to me, the prototypical "Fire in the Night" color. In case you are wondering, that is not an official name; it's just our name for this color variety.

Next is a macro shot of that same coral. You can see that it is the tentacles of the polyps that are bright red. The stalk itself is relatively pale. Those bright yellow bits on the surface of the stalk are sclerites -- hard structures that help it to hold its shape when it is plumped up. They serve a purpose similar to battens in a sail. They also pose a lighting problem to photographers, since they tend to be more reflective than the rest of the coral.

This next variety is a little less fiery than the one above, but is definitely bright and rich. We call this "Golden Glow." This time it's the stalk and sclerites that are golden, while the tentacles on the polyps are almost white.

A similar variety is the one we call "Hot Peach." It has a yellowish stalk, and bright yellow sclerites, but the flower-like polyps are a rosy pink. The combination of the yellows and pinks make it look quite "peachy," we think.

We'll wind up today with a macro shot of the "Hot Peach" color variety. According to my dive log, this image was captured just after dusk. The photo clearly shows that the tentacles were not fully retracted, but not yet fully extended, either.

These corals are not exactly easy to photograph. First of all, they don't need bright sunlight to prosper, so many of them live in deep water, or under ledges and overhangs, or inside cavelets. So, first the photographer has to find them.

Secondly, since these corals are bushy and branchy, they have many planes, and it's difficult to choose a point of focus. Also, since some parts -- especially those calcareous sclerites -- are more reflective than other parts, lighting them evenly can be a challenge.

Shots like the ones on this page were taken at night. Often there is virtually no ambient light underwater at night. So, the photographer (and her helpful dive companion) must locate the subjects to photograph by shining their handheld searchlights this way and that. It helps a lot if the team already has done at least one thorough survey of the area during daylight!

Next, the photographer composes the shot in light provided by a submersible flashlight. Underwater strobes only light a relatively small area -- so the photographer really has to get in close. Meanwhile we have to mind our buoyancy, depth, elapsed time, and our air supply, among other technicalities. But somehow it all comes together, at least some of the time.

Next time we'll show you some paler specimens of Nephtheid soft corals from our photo collection.