Yony Román-Ochoa

A new bubblegum coral from the Nazca Ridge reveals chitin as the structural scaffold of skeleton-less Paragorgia colonies

Abstract Bubblegum corals ( Paragorgia ; Corallidae) form among the largest branching colonies in deep-sea environments despite lacking an axial skeleton. How these octocorals maintain structural cohesion using only sub-millimeter sclerites has remained unexplained. Here we descr...