The Right Blue: Corals of Many Colors - The Nephtheidae Family

by B. N. Sullivan

This past week our Wordless Wednesday post was a macro (ultra close-up) photo of a red Nephtheid soft coral. Quite a few people who commented on the photo indicated that they had never seen such a coral, or even imagined there was a coral of that color.

The truth is that corals in the family Nephtheidae are among the most beautiful things a diver will see underwater. They come in a seemingly endless number of color variations. Some of these corals have colors that are are very rich, like that in the image I posted last Wednesday. Others have softer colors, like those in the photo on this page. Nephtheid soft corals also come in assorted pastels, and some are so pale and delicate as to be translucent.

I have hundreds of images of these soft corals, and I must have promised myself dozens of times to stop taking pictures of them. How many photos of soft corals does one person need to take?! But I always end up relenting when I see still another color shade that I haven't photographed before. I can't seem to resist them.

The next several posts will display a sampler of Nephtheid soft corals in their various colors. Most will be macro shots that show not just the colors, but also the structure of this lovely type of marine life. We hope you will enjoy this look at some of our "corals of many colors."

7 comments:

ankush vimawalaJan 29, 2008 10:22 AM
wow! lovely colors.
mon@rchJan 29, 2008 07:01 PM
Amazing colors!
BNSJan 29, 2008 08:38 PM
Thank you Ankush and Monarch. I searched through my photos to find one with soft corals of several different colors to illustrate this post. Tis one does the trick.

Bobbie
bernie kasperJan 30, 2008 01:23 PM
The colors are beautiful in this Bobbie!!
BNSJan 30, 2008 01:36 PM
Thank you, Bernie.
DavidlindFeb 16, 2008 02:27 PM
Nice. my favorite one of the first thirty or so. I wish I could find the plugin you use to enlarge the photos. I have been looking for something like that for awhile and finally decided to use Picasa and their web features and slide show. Which works alright I guess.
This is my first visit here via BC. and here is Bernie! He beat me to it! Not the first time or the last! Hi Bernie.
BNSFeb 16, 2008 08:15 PM
Hello David -

Welcome to The Right Blue. I recognize your name from the BC discussions.

I'm not using a plug-in to enlarge the photos -- I simply load the "enlarged" size into Blogger, and then display it with smaller dimensions in the post. I think you may be thinking of a plug-in called "Lightbox," which works with blogs that use the Wordpress platform.

Nothing wrong with using Picasa web albums to display photos online. I quite like Picasa.

Thanks for visiting, and I hope you'll come back again.

Bobbie

P.S. Yes, Bernie K. is a regular visitor to The Right Blue. Small world...