Skip to main content

Story: Corals, anemones and jellyfish

Sea pens

Video file

Sea pens are soft corals, lacking a hard skeleton. Rows of specialised feeding polyps grow along the feathery branches of the central polyp. At night, sea pens give off green bioluminescence. This clip, filmed by Natural History New Zealand, shows the corals growing on the sea floor in one of the fiords of Fiordland.

Using this item

Natural History New Zealand

This item has been provided for private study purposes (such as school projects, family and local history research) and any published reproduction (print or electronic) may infringe copyright law. It is the responsibility of the user of any material to obtain clearance from the copyright holder.

All images & media in this story

How to cite this page

Dennis Gordon, Corals, anemones and jellyfish – True corals and sea anemones, Te Ara – the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, https://teara.govt.nz/en/video/4726/sea-pens (accessed 5 June 2026).

Story by Dennis Gordon, published 2 March 2009, updated 26 September 2016.