''Gersemia juliepackardae'' is a

species In biology, a species is the basic unit of classification and a taxonomic rank of an organism, as well as a unit of biodiversity. A species is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate s ...

soft coral Alcyonacea, or soft corals, are an order of corals. In addition to the fleshy soft corals, the order Alcyonacea now contains all species previously known as "gorgonian corals", that produce a more or less hard skeleton, though quite different f ...

in the

family Family (from la, familia) is a Social group, group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or Affinity (law), affinity (by marriage or other relationship). The purpose of the family is to maintain the well-being of its ...

Nephtheidae Nephtheidae is a family of soft corals in the phylum Cnidaria. Members of this family are known as carnation corals, tree corals or colt soft corals. They are very attractive and show a wide range of rich and pastel colours including reds, pinks ...

. It is found in the northeast

Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the continen ...

, on

seamount A seamount is a large geologic landform that rises from the ocean floor that does not reach to the water's surface (sea level), and thus is not an island, islet or cliff-rock. Seamounts are typically formed from extinct volcanoes that rise abru ...

s or on the deep ocean bed. The coral is named in honour of

Julie Packard Julie E. Packard (born 1952/1953) is an American ocean conservationist and philanthropist. She helped create the Monterey Bay Aquarium in the early 1980s and is its executive director, a position she has held since its opening in 1984. She sp ...

, the executive director of the

Monterey Bay Aquarium Monterey Bay Aquarium is a nonprofit public aquarium in Monterey, California. Known for its regional focus on the marine habitats of Monterey Bay, it was the first to exhibit a living kelp forest when it opened in October 1984. Its biologists ...

, for "her dedication to ocean stewardship and conservation, and for elevating public awareness about the ocean environment."

Description

Colonies In modern parlance, a colony is a territory subject to a form of foreign rule. Though dominated by the foreign colonizers, colonies remain separate from the administration of the original country of the colonizers, the '' metropolitan state'' ...

of ''Gersemia juliepackardae'' have an upright main stem and are attached to the substrate by a holdfast. The stalk of the

holotype A holotype is a single physical example (or illustration) of an organism, known to have been used when the species (or lower-ranked taxon) was formally described. It is either the single such physical example (or illustration) or one of several ...

is tall with a width of at the base. Lateral branches start just above the holdfast and are borne mostly in two opposite rows. Each of these lateral branches develop several secondary branchlets near the tip. The non-retractable polyps are tubular in shape and are mostly on the secondary branches. The eight tentacles on each polyp can be retracted into the polyp body. The polyps are about long, the basal part being while and the tentacular part salmon pink. The holdfast and basal part of the stalk are white while the rest of the stalk and the branches are pink.

Distribution

The holotype was collected in 2007 from

Pioneer Seamount Pioneer Seamount is an undersea mountain, or seamount, in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of central California. Location Pioneer Seamount is located at 37° 21.1' North Latitude, 123° 26.1' West Longitude, at the base of the continental slope ...

off the coast of central

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

, at a depth of approximately . Other specimens were collected from

Rodriguez Seamount Rodriguez Seamount is a seamount and guyot located about off the coast of Central California. It is structurally similar to the nearby Guide, Pioneer, Gumdrop, and Davidson seamounts, all located roughly between 37.5° and 34.0° degrees of lat ...

off southern California at , off the coast of

Oregon Oregon () is a U.S. state, state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. The Columbia River delineates much of Oregon's northern boundary with Washington (state), Washington, while the Snake River delineates much of it ...

at and off the coast of northern

Washington Washington commonly refers to: * Washington (state), United States * Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States ** A metonym for the federal government of the United States ** Washington metropolitan area, the metropolitan area centered on ...

at . Observations from a

remotely operated underwater vehicle A remotely operated underwater vehicle (technically ROUV or just ROV) is a tethered underwater mobile device, commonly called ''underwater robot''. Definition This meaning is different from remote control vehicles operating on land or in the ai ...

show that most specimens are attached to rock substrates singly, or in small groups, while some grow on dead and living

sponge Sponges, the members of the phylum Porifera (; meaning 'pore bearer'), are a basal animal clade as a sister of the diploblasts. They are multicellular organisms that have bodies full of pores and channels allowing water to circulate through t ...

s; these may be the first examples known where

octocoral Octocorallia (also known as Alcyonaria) is a class of Anthozoa comprising around 3,000 species of water-based organisms formed of colonial polyps with 8-fold symmetry. It includes the blue coral, soft corals, sea pens, and gorgonians (sea fans ...

s in the deep sea are living on sponges.

References

Nephtheidae Animals described in 2009 Cnidarians of the Pacific Ocean {{octocorallia-stub