At the bottom of the Pacific, a golden coral has prompted researchers to revise their classification: it belongs to a family no one had described before.
In images from the SuBastian underwater robot, it looks like a small bright yellow tree standing on the seafloor. Several colonies were observed and collected off Costa Rica, near Cocos Island, between 360 and 529 m deep.
Four underwater views of the coral Laurinque elenya: collection of the colony, details of the polyps and branches. Images: SuBastian robot / Breedy et al., ZooKeys (2026), CC BY 4.0.
Despite its tree-like appearance, this coral is not a plant. Like most corals, it is made up of many small animals called polyps, connected to one another. They are what make up the coral: they do not live as parasites on another animal. Each one has eight tentacles here to capture its food. There are also solitary corals, made up of a single polyp.
Back in the laboratory, the researchers studied six specimens. They examined their branches, polyps and the tiny rigid elements that support their tissues. But this combination of characteristics clearly did not match any known coral family.
DNA analysis did not immediately settle the matter. Depending on the parts examined, the results linked the coral to different groups. The researchers therefore expanded their analyses to many other regions of its DNA, to trace its relationship with other corals more precisely.
By combining these results with their microscope observations, they discovered a distinct lineage. They named the species Laurinque elenya. And to give it a place in the classification of life, they created a new genus, Laurinque, as well as a new family: Laurinqueidae.
The distinction goes far beyond a new species. A family usually brings together several groups of related species. Here, the differences are marked enough to justify an entire family, of which Laurinque elenya is currently the only known member.
The question remains where any other representatives of this family might live. The six specimens came from a few sites in the Costa Rican Pacific. Future dives on other seamounts could reveal related corals that have gone unnoticed until now.