The purple soft coral (''Alcyonium fauri'') is a

species A species () is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate sexes or mating types can produce fertile offspring, typically by sexual reproduction. It is the basic unit of Taxonomy (biology), ...

of colonial

soft coral Alcyonacea is the old scientific order name for the informal group known as "soft corals". It is now an unaccepted name for class Octocorallia. It became deprecated . The following text should be considered a historical, outdated way of treatin ...

in the

family Family (from ) is a Social group, group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or Affinity (law), affinity (by marriage or other relationship). It forms the basis for social order. Ideally, families offer predictabili ...

Alcyoniidae Alcyoniidae is a family of leathery or soft corals in the phylum Cnidaria.Leathery cor ...

.Branch, G.M., Branch, M.L, Griffiths, C.L. and Beckley, L.E. 2010. ''Two Oceans: a guide to the marine life of southern Africa''

Description

Purple soft corals grow in small colonies of up to 3 cm in height. The diameter of the individual polyps is 0.4 cm. They are usually bright purple, although they may be yellow, pink, red, dark grey or orange. The soft colony is encrusting and variably shaped. Feeding polyps extend eight tentacles into the water column.Jones, Georgina. ''A field guide to the marine animals of the Cape Peninsula.'' SURG, Cape Town, 2008.

Distribution

This species is known from Saldanha Bay to Richards Bay off the South African coast, and lives from the low intertidal to 90m under water.

Ecology

This species feeds on microplankton. It is preyed on by the

nudibranch Nudibranchs () are a group of soft-bodied marine gastropod molluscs, belonging to the order Nudibranchia, that shed their shells after their larval stage. They are noted for their often extraordinary colours and striking forms, and they have b ...

s '' Leminda millecra'' and two extremely well camouflaged species from the genus '' Tritonia''.

References

Animals described in 1910 Alcyoniidae {{octocorallia-stub