• Norwegian: dødmannshånd

Characteristics:

This species is called "Dead men's fingers" for obvious reasons. Mature colonies form irregular, thick-branched bushes, perhaps resembling a crippled hand. The colonies comes in all shades from almost white, to yellow and deep orange. The polyps are translucent white and may contract into the fleshy branches.

Habitat:

This is by far the most common soft coral in the North Sea. It thrives on rocky substrate. On current exposed locations with steep walls, they may dominate the bottom entirely. It lives from the lower shore and down to approximately 50 meters.

Distribution:

Very frequent along the coasts of Europe and the British Isles, Scandinavia and Iceland. In Norway it is found as far north as the western parts of Finnmark.