Red sea fan
Callistephanus kofoidi
- On view
- Into the Deep
- Animal type
- Invertebrates
- Ecosystem
- Deep sea
- Relatives
- Other sea fans; sea whips; gorgonians; corals; sea anemones; jellies
- Diet
- Animal plankton
- Range
- Deep sea floor, at depths from 130–6,000 feet (40–1,829 m)
- Size
- Up to 20 inches tall (51 cm)
Meet the red sea fan
Sea fans look a lot like plants with colorful forked "branches." But they're actually animals just like their relatives corals and jellies. Sea fans are colonial animals made up of many tiny, individual animals that work together as one.
Did you know?
The individual animals living along the sea fan's "branches" look like little anemones. Using small, feathery tentacles, a sea fan feeds by capturing tiny animal plankton that drift by in the currents.
Conservation
Sea fans and their relatives, the sea whips and gorgonians, grow very slowly. In some areas, fishing trawlers snag and destroy many sea fans in their nets. Some sea fans trawled near Nova Scotia were over six feet tall and 500 years old! Because sea fans and other slow-growing deep-sea animals provide shelter for young fishes and other organisms, removing the sea fans can affect many other species.
Cool facts
- Sea fans' stems are flexible, allowing them to survive in strong currents.
Want to see amazing deep-sea creatures up close? Visit our exhibition, Into the Deep: Exploring Our Undiscovered Ocean (En lo Profundo: Explorando Nuestro Océano Desconocido).
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