New coral species can live for more than 4,000 years

Researchers have identified a new species of deep-sea black coral that’s only been found in Hawaiian waters and can live longer than any other known marine organism.

The newly classified species of fan-shaped coral, formally Leiopathes annosa, can live more than 4,000 years, researchers say. Its name derives from the Latin meaning for "long-lived." Previously, scientists either didn’t know how to classify it or they would incorrectly group it with another species, according to the researchers who identified it.

"We found that the Hawaiian specimens are all distinct … from other parts of the world," Daniel Wagner, a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration research specialist for the Papahanaumokuakea National Marine Sanctuary, said of L. annosa. "We can take pride out here that we have these in our own backyard, these kupuna, these very old organisms."

"No one had looked at them until now," he added.

Samples collected over a century at depths greater than 1,000 feet helped them uncover the local coral’s true identity. Some of those samples came from an old research steamer that trawled Hawaiian waters back in the early 1900s.

Others came from the manned submersibles that have made hundreds of dives in the past several decades but could soon shut down as their funding has dried up.

Wagner and Dennis Opresko of the Washington, D.C.-based Smithsonian Institution had their findings published last week in the scientific journal Zootaxa.

"Black" coral actually comes in bright colors and gets its name from its skeleton, Wagner said.

"It’s a beautiful, incredible coral. They’re really something to see underwater," said Terry Kerby, operations director and chief pilot for the Hawaiian Undersea Research Laboratory, whose submersibles provided the more recent samples. "They’re just really ancient corals."

Colonies of the black coral are abundant in the deep waters off the islands but don’t form beds like their shallow-water coral cousins often do, Wagner said. He said they typically stretch about 3 feet tall and he’s seen them reach about 6 feet in height.

The differences in size and spacing of the coral samples’ microscopic skeletal spines, compared with those on similar black coral, helped to classify the new Leiopathes species, Wagner said.

Some of the skeletal samples they used dated back to 1902 during an expedition by the U.S. government research vessel Albatross, Wagner said.

The team further analyzed samples taken in subsequent expeditions to the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands in the 1970s, as well as a 2009 expedition using Hawaiian Undersea Research Laboratory’s Pisces manned submersible, Wagner said.

The laboratory is a joint venture of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the University of Hawaii, and one of the few programs available to explore the millions of square miles below the Pacific Ocean surface. However, federal budget cuts in recent years have trimmed staff, stalled Pisces dives since this past fall, and threaten to soon shut down the program for good, officials there say. The university’s own budget woes leave it unable to make up the difference, they add.

"We don’t know what’s going to happen. There’s nothing certain that’s going to get us through 2015," Kerby said. "We’re a long way from Beltway politics out here in the ocean frontier."

Some of the coral samples came from the Bishop Museum, while others came from the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History, Wagner said.

Similar to trees on land, deep-sea coral form rings that can reveal their age, according to a NOAA release. Scientists have known for at least several years that the black coral found in Hawaiian waters could outlive all other known sea life — but "we just didn’t know the identity of this species," Wagner added.

The recent findings help to illustrate how much more scientists have to learn about life on the seafloor, he said.