A tall feathery gorgonian that moves with the surge and gives the shallow Caribbean reef its characteristic look.
Colonies to about 1.5 m tall. A tall feathery plume with cylindrical main stems and long flexible side branches arranged regularly in opposite pairs, flat or triangular in section. The colour runs from purple through beige to tan.
The field mark is in the name: it produces copious mucus and feels distinctly slimy. It is the only Caribbean sea plume that does, and touching it is the check. Several other sea plumes look very similar and none of them is slimy.
It carries symbiotic algae and also feeds on plankton, and it lives on shallow hard bottom, reef flats and down the reef in clear water between about 1 and 50 m.
Two notes. The genus changed in 2012, so older books and some databases still carry it under Pseudopterogorgia. And this group is the source of the pseudopterosins, anti-inflammatory compounds that have been commercially harvested from a related species in the Bahamas for cosmetics.
Ratings are per location: 1 means found on most dives that look for it, 5 means a handful of records. Where enough dives have been logged the figure is calculated from them; otherwise it is an editorial estimate, and says so. We publish habitat and destination, not the dive site.
