A potentially dying coral colony with two attached brittle stars and two anemones. A small amount of apparently living tissue on some branches is orange to olive in color. Portions of the skeleton lacking tissue or covered by brown flocculent material. The brittle starfish is a normal symbiont of this type of coral, however the bleached white color of the arms is not typical.
 Dying Coral
Image courtesy of Lophelia II 2010, NOAA OER and BOEMRE. Download image (jpg, 105 KB).

A potentially dying coral colony with two attached brittle stars and two anemones. A small amount of apparently living tissue on some branches is orange to olive in color. Portions of the skeleton lacking tissue or covered by brown flocculent material. The brittle starfish is a normal symbiont of this type of coral, however the bleached white color of the arms is not typical.