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Coral Lab @corallab.bsky.social · 05/02/2026

New paper out in Genome Biology and Evolution! Genome Skimming Illuminates Hidden Species Diversity and Symbiodiniaceae Associations in East Pacific Pocillopora Corals @michaeltconnelly.bsky.social et al. Link to the paper: academic.oup.com/gbe/article/...

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Coral Lab @corallab.bsky.social · 21/11/2025

Genome skimming yields thousands of loci, recovering mitochondrial genomes and nuclear markers. Other benefits are higher phylogenetic resolution, success with degraded samples, and compatibility with future bait sets (i.e., future-proof). Read more here: 🔗 naturalhistory.si.edu/research/inv...

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Coral Lab @corallab.bsky.social · 16/01/2025

Congrats to Dr. Andrea Quattrini (Coral Curator, SI NMNH) for winning The Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers! This is the highest honor bestowed by the United States federal government on outstanding scientists in the early stages of their independent research careers!

Dr. Andrea Quattrini holding up a big orange coral while standing in a room full of drawers that contain corals.

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Coral Lab @corallab.bsky.social · 17/12/2024

We use scanning electron microscopes to image skeletal features, which are used to identify or describe new species. This image shows branches of 𝘈𝘱𝘩𝘢𝘯𝘪𝘱𝘢𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘴 𝘱𝘶𝘦𝘳𝘵𝘰𝘳𝘪𝘤𝘰𝘦𝘯𝘴𝘪𝘴 (left) with a highlighted section showing the branch skeleton (middle) and skeletal spines (right). 🦑🧪🌊🐙

Left: Branches of Aphanipathes puertoricoensis Horowitz & Quattrini, 2023, a branch with some subbranches and a scale showing 5 cm, with a white box over a branch indicating the section shown in the middle image. Middle: Skeleton of the branch section that has rows of skeletal spines, with a white box highlighting the area shown in the right image. Right: Close-up of skeletal spines that have little bumps or tubercles, small surface features on the spines used to identify black coral species.

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Coral Lab @corallab.bsky.social · 06/12/2024

𝗦𝗽𝗲𝗰𝗶𝗲𝘀 𝗵𝗶𝗴𝗵𝗹𝗶𝗴𝗵𝘁! Black coral 𝘚𝘵𝘢𝘶𝘳𝘰𝘱𝘢𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘴 𝘢𝘳𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘤𝘢 (Lütken 1871) was described from the stomach of a shark! You read that right, the type series includes a specimen collected from the stomach of a Greenland shark. 𝗥𝗶𝗱𝗱𝗹𝗲: 𝗪𝗵𝘆 𝗱𝗶𝗱 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗚𝗿𝗲𝗲𝗻𝗹𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝘀𝗵𝗮𝗿𝗸 𝗲𝗮𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗯𝗹𝗮𝗰𝗸 𝗰𝗼𝗿𝗮𝗹?🦑🧪🌊🐙

Picture of the holotype of Stauropathes arctica.

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Coral Lab @corallab.bsky.social · 25/11/2024

𝗦𝗽𝗲𝗰𝗶𝗲𝘀 𝗦𝗽𝗼𝘁𝗹𝗶𝗴𝗵𝘁! Meet 𝘛𝘦𝘳𝘳𝘢𝘻𝘰𝘢𝘯𝘵𝘩𝘶𝘴 𝘴𝘪𝘭𝘷𝘦𝘪𝘳𝘢𝘪 Vaga, Migotto & Kitahara, 2021—a zoantharian coral described from SE Brazil by @claudiavaga.bsky.social and colleagues (doi.org/10.1080/1745...). Fun Fact: 𝘛. 𝘴𝘪𝘭𝘷𝘦𝘪𝘳𝘢𝘪 forms symbiotic relationships with sponges rather than reef-building corals.🦑🧪🌊🐙

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Coral Lab @corallab.bsky.social · 20/11/2024

Chromosome-level genome assembly of the Vermillion Snapper (Rhomboplites aurorubens) doi.org/10.21203/rs.... 🧵7/7

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Coral Lab @corallab.bsky.social · 20/11/2024

Ameripathidae, a new family of antipatharian corals doi.org/10.3897/zook... 🧵6/7

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Coral Lab @corallab.bsky.social · 20/11/2024

Untangling deep-sea corals systematics: Description of a new family, Stephanocyathidae, through a genomic approach onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1... 🧵5/7

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Coral Lab @corallab.bsky.social · 20/11/2024

A new genus of bamboo coral from the Whittard Canyon, Ireland, Northeast Atlantic doi.org/10.1071/IS24... 🧵4/7

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Coral Lab @corallab.bsky.social · 20/11/2024

Evolution of bioluminescence in Anthozoa with emphasis on Octocorallia doi.org/10.1098/rspb... 🧵2/7

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Coral Lab @corallab.bsky.social · 20/11/2024

Welcome to the Coral Lab! 🪸 🦑🧪🌊🐙 This page shares new research and discoveries related to coral taxonomy, systematics, and evolutionary history. To kick things off, here’s a few of our favorite coral research and discoveries of 2024! A thread 🧵1/7

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