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The aim of this paper is to supply an overview of all historical and recent knowledge on landings, fishing and geographic distribution of the red coral banks along the Italian coasts in order to ma...

A remotely operated vehicle (ROV) survey conducted in the deep (250–400 m) Maltese waters in 2013 revealed, for the first time, the characteristics of an extended coral forest, constituted almost exclusively by the arborescent, longevous black coral Leiopathes glaberrima. This species is a major component of the deep coral forests of the Mediterranean Sea and its occurrence in dense populations greatly enhances the benthic biodiversity of the sites in question. The existence of such a complex benthic ecosystem is particularly interesting for Malta, since this area represented, in the 1980s, the only sanctioned site within the Mediterranean basin for the commercial exploitation of black corals. The occurrence of the large black coral population hints that, at least within the investigated area, the coral resource has not greatly suffered from past coral harvesting activities. The major current concern, however, is represented by the massive anthropogenic impact due to benthic fishing activities car...

The existence of deep red coral (Corallium rubrum) banks in the gulfs of Naples and Salerno (South Tyrrhenian Sea, Mediterranean Sea) is well known in historical records due to the heavy coral harvesting that occurred during the 19th and 20th centuries, by both trawling gears and scuba diving. In 2010 and 2012, during two Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV) surveys on board of the Research Vessel (R/V) Astrea, red coral banks were detected in 16 of the 25 visited localities, between 45 and 150 m depth. Seven of these banks, located in the inner part of the Gulf of Naples, were already explored in 1918 by a scientific survey reporting the occurrence of red coral. Healthy populations (densities > 90 colonies m−2) were present only around the coasts of the Phlegrean Islands (Ischia and Procida Islands). Very low densities (< 5 colonies m−2) or the absence of coral were recorded in all other sites of the Gulf of Naples (including all historical re-visited banks), and a variable percentage of dead coloni...

Black coral communities in the Mediterranean Sea are now recognized to be far more common than what was expected a few years ago; however, among the species reported for this basin, Parantipathes larix is one of the least well known. This species is characterized by tall, monopodial or sparsely branched colonies showing a distinctive bottle-brush pinnulation pattern and fairly elongated whitish polyps. Rarely reported in the literature, this species, despite frequently occurring as fishing bycatch, has never been observed in dense populations and all available information mainly concerns its morphological features. Two forests of P. larix were discovered during a remotely operated vehicle (ROV) survey conducted in July 2012 on board the R/V Astrea between 100 and 200 m on two continental rocky shoals located about 10 miles southeast of the Island of Montecristo (Tuscan Archipelago, Tyrrhenian Sea). Video footage was analyzed using the ROV imaging technique, and the coral communities were described...

The new species, Pseudocirrhipathes mapia, is herein described from specimens coming from the coral reefs of the Bunaken Marine Park (North Sulawesi, Indonesia). The species is characterized by an unbranched thin corallum up to 1 m high (maximum basal thickness 4 mm), with large polyps arranged irregularly on one side of the stem, and by tentacles that are not completely contractile. The skeleton shows an array of spine morphologies along the stem, although most are typically verticillated in the apical section and highly tuberculated in the central portion. The study of its cnidome revealed the presence of an extremely long basitrich isorhiza. The morphological analysis has been coupled with a molecular study of the rDNA ITS sequences confirming the existence of the new genus Pseudocirrhipathes and its inclusion, together with the genus Allopathes, in a separate clade related to the Antipathidae.