Red coral

Photo: Sylvain Le Bris · CC BY-NC

Corallium rubrum is the Mediterranean's most iconic and historically harvested precious coral, its vivid red skeleton prized since antiquity for jewellery. It grows as slow-branching colonies in low-light, cave, and overhang environments from 10 to over 200 metres depth. The Grotta di Nettuno protects some of the largest remaining shallow red coral stands in Sardinia — individual colonies can be several decades old and are extraordinarily slow to recover if damaged.