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A Coral in Hand

WHOI Biologist Tim Shank holds a deep-sea coral specimen collected from an unnamed canyon south of Martha’s Vineyard in May 2016. Deep-sea corals have evolved to survive without the support of photosynthesizing algae that provide food for their shallow-water cousins on the Great Barrier Reef and elsewhere. Like shallow-water corals, however, deep-sea varieties provide habitat for a diverse array of marine organisms. Deep-sea corals will be the focus of an upcoming international symposium co-organized by Shank. (Photo by Ken Kostel, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)