Sea Bamboo Coral

A very unusual pendant which has been made from a piece of polished sea bamboo coral threaded on to a leather thong. This piece is approx. 3in. long.
The thong is meant to be tied at the back of the neck and can be cut to fit any size up to 53.5cm/21in.

Bamboo corals are fascinating, and they are not an endangered species. They are cosmopolitan, which means they occur in waters all over the world. They can be immensely abundant, often dominating deep-sea communities and forming large, single-species fields, meadows, or stands. Their fleshy polyps are non-retractile, growing upon a calcareous (containing calcium carbonate) skeleton, alternated by horny gorgonian nodes. The bony internodes are increasingly used in jewellery, both in its natural form (bony white) and as a dyed polished form (pinkish-red). One of the deepest recorded occurrences of all deep-sea corals is a bamboo coral (Keratoisis profunda), which was discovered at 4,851 m.