Organ pipe coral

Tubipora musica · The organ pipe coral is a soft coral with a hard red skeleton of pipe-like tubes, living in the Indian Ocean and the central and western Pacific Ocean.

Organ pipe coral
Photo: Frédéric Ducarme, CC BY-SA 4.0
Organ pipe coral
Photo: Frédéric Ducarme, CC BY-SA 4.0
Organ pipe coral
Photo: Diego Delso, CC BY-SA 4.0

Taxonomy

KingdomAnimalia
PhylumCnidaria
ClassAnthozoa
OrderMalacalcyonacea
FamilyTubiporidae
GenusTubipora
SpeciesTubipora musica

Where it lives

Shallow reefs of the Indian Ocean, Red Sea and central and western Pacific.

Fun facts

  • Although it is a soft coral, the organ pipe coral builds a hard skeleton of calcium carbonate full of tubes that look like organ pipes.
  • Each polyp has eight feather-like tentacles, which it swiftly pulls in if anything disturbs it.
  • The skeleton is bright red, but living colonies usually look green, blue, or purple because the polyps hide the red.
  • A colony can grow up to 3 meters across, even though each tiny polyp is typically less than 3 mm wide.

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Facts and taxonomy adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0).