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Story: Corals, anemones and jellyfish

Sea pens

Sea pens are soft corals, lacking a hard skeleton. Rows of specialised feeding polyps grow along the feathery branches of the central polyp. At night, sea pens give off green bioluminescence. This clip, filmed by Natural History New Zealand, shows the corals growing on the sea floor in one of the fiords of Fiordland.

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Natural History New Zealand

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How to cite this page:

Dennis Gordon. 'Corals, anemones and jellyfish', Te Ara - the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, updated 24-Sep-11
URL: http://www.TeAra.govt.nz/en/corals-anemones-and-jellyfish/2/2