Elkhorn Coral
Acropora palmata
Status: Critically Endangered. 22 coral species are threatened, and three are endangered. This status continues to change as climate change affects ocean temperatures and pollution increases. Some other threatened corals: Elegance coral, crisp pillow coral, horastrea coral, pillar coral, elliptical star coral, mushroom coral, parasimplastrea coral, pearl bubble coral, ctenella coral.
The ancient Greek myth of Perseus tells of the origin of coral. Perseus was the son of Zeus and Danae, an Argive princess, daughter of Acrisius. Acrisius had been given a prophecy that he would be killed by his grandson, and so when Perseus was born, he had child and mother put in a chest and cast out to sea.
Perseus grew up on the island of Seriphus, and in the course of adventures, and aided by Athena's advice and a cleverly mirror-clear shield, he killed and beheaded Medusa, the snake-haired Gorgon, whose gaze turned all who looked upon her to stone. On his way home to Seriphus, Perseus came upon the Ethiopean princess Andromeda, who was being sacrificed to Poseidon. To rescue Andromeda, the hero defeated a great sea monster by using Medusa's head to turn it to stone. The beast shattered and crumbled to vanish as silt and pebbles beneath the ocean waves.
As Perseus set Medusa's head upon the riverbank to wash his hands, some of the blood seeped down sandy channels into the water. Where it touched seaweed, the reeds and fronds hardened to stone as well, frozen as coils and tubes and tendrils. These petrified plants of the Red Sea became the first coral.
References:
Navakas, M. C. (2023). Coral Lives: Literature, Labor, and the Making of America. United States: Princeton University Press.
"Perseus - Greek Mythology", Encyclopedia Britannica, 2023. https://www.britannica.com/topic/Perseus-Greek-mythology
Precious Coral and the Legacy of the Coral Road. (2021). United Kingdom: Cambridge Scholars Publisher.