A sea of corals in the Mediterranean Sea

The fortuitous discovery of living colonies of white corals on the unexplored bottoms of Santa Maria di Leuca (Ionian Sea), 18 years ago, represented an unprecedented turning point in the study of the Mediterranean bathyal ecosystems. A long-term explorative and descriptive study program was carried out in this area, also stimulating the search of coral forest ecosystems all over the basin, at all depths, and the carrying out of numerous relevant scientific studies. The deep coral era has started. Nowadays, considering as cold-water corals the habitat-forming azooxanthellate cnidarians, 61 deep coral sites are known in the basin.