Orange Spiny Sea Rod, Muricea elongate

Orange Spiny Sea Rod, Muricea elongate. A soft coral that lacks a hard, rigid, permanent skeleton. It is a member of the Plexauridae Family, which includes feather plums, sea fans, sea rods, and sea whips. They form tall bushy colonies that reach 46 cm (18 inches) in height with hard, rough, spiked edges. The stems and branches have a single skeleton that attaches to the substrate via a single holdfast. They branch laterally near the base, not in single planes, but toward the top branch pinnately. They have prominent, hard, rough, close-set calyces with sharply spiked lower lips. They are normally found in the first 100 feet of the water column from sandy bottoms to sloping rocky structures. Their distribution within Mexican waters is unknown and from a scientific perspective little is known about this soft coral.