SCUBA News 302
(ISSN 1476-8011)
September 2025

What's New at SCUBA Travel?

Best diving in Baja California Baja has some beautiful diving, from the unique Sand Falls to spectacular Socorro. READ MORE...

Beneath the Waves of the UAE From colourful reefs to enormous wrecks - surprisingly good diving in the UAE. CONTINUE READING...

Best dives in the Caribbean With wrecks, coral reefs, caves, walls and sharks - the Caribbean has some fantastic dive sites. Here are ten of the best, as voted for by divers. SEE LIST AND CAST VOTE

Liveaboard Diving Offers: Dive for Less SCUBATRAVEL5

Get up to 63% off at some of the best diving spots in the world.

1. Febrina, Papua New Guinea. SAVE 30%. With just 7 cabins, two of which are singles for solo travellers, you won't be crowded at the dive sites on this boat at the remote PNG dive sites.

   

   SAVE 30%

2. Blue Lotus, Indonesia. SAVE 30% in 2025/26. Visits the fantastic dive sites of Komodo. Just 12 guests for small group diving and focused on sustainability.

   

   30% OFF

3. Galapagos Aqua. SAVE $700. Diving the Galapagos is thrilling and unforgetable. But generally not cheap. So here is our special deal to help with the cost. Some holiday departures are still available too, spend Christmas or New Year in one of the most legendary dive destinations in the world.

   

   GALAPAGOS FROM ONLY $1327

4. Carpe Vita, Best of the Maldives. SAVE 10% in 2025 and 2026.



BOOK NOW, PAY LATER

5. Thorfinn, Truk Lagoon, SAVE 40% at the world's greatest wreck dives. Book now at this amazing price and pay later.

   

   TAKE ME THERE

6. Raga, Thailand. SAVE 15% Itinerary includes Richelieu Rock, Koh Bon, Koh Tachai, Similan Islands and the Boonsoong Wrecl in the northern Andaman Sea.



GET DEAL

7. Red Sea Aggressor IV , SAVE up to 63% on diving iconic sites like The Brothers, St Johns, Daedalus and my favourite, Elphinstone.

   

   FROM JUST £734!

See more liveaboard deals to some of the best diving in the world - Micronesia, Philippines, Galapagos, Indonesia, Cocos Islands...

Why black corals aren't black - the yellow wire coral is creature of the month

Black coral appears almost any colour apart from black.

This black coral is called Yellow wire coral, but actually looks red.

There are many species that make up the black corals, but all of them belong to the Antipatharia order. Most live in water deeper than 50 m (down to over 8600 m), but the wire or whip corals are often seen by recreational divers in the Indo-Pacific, sometimes as shallow as 2 m.

Wire coral, also known as perhaps the more aptly named Whip coral, in the Maldives. Tim Nicholson

Black corals are so-called as their skeleton, which has been used extensively for jewellery, is black. The shallow wire corals have been overharvested around the world and all are now on the Cites Appendix II in which trade must be controlled.

Researchers have successfully transplanted fragments of yellow wire corals, showing the resilience and acclimation capacity of this species. Unbranched black corals like these have proved much more tolerant to thermal stress than branched ones.

Yellow wire coral (Cirrhipathes anguina) in the Red Sea. Jill Studholme

The yellow wire (or whip) coral grows to 2 m long. You generally find it below 10 m. It is one of the fastest growing colonial organisms, growing 13.25 cm a month.

Home to many other creatures

A male-female pair of gobies, beautifully camouflaged on wire coral. Malapascua, Cebu Island in the Philippines. Graham Collins

These hexacorals play important ecological roles as habitat providers. They host many symbiotic species, which spend their adult life with their host and use them to access food. The small fish and shrimps feed from the water passing over the black corals; the same conditions suit both.

Whip Coral Goby (Bryaninops yongei) on a White Whip Coral. Anilao, Philippines. Daniel Lamborn/DepositPhotos

Prefer fast moving water

The yellow wire coral prefers current rich areas, often sticking out at right angles to a coral wall. The moving water brings the plankton upon which they feed. Unlike many corals found in shallow water, they don't have photosynthesising zooxanthellae in their tissues and get all their nutrition from filter-feeding.

Wire coral in the Maldives. Tim Nicholson

Male and Female

There are male and female wire corals, each wire or whip being a colony of polyps. They spawn annually towards the end of summer, when sea water temperature rises, releasing their eggs or sperm through the mouths of the polyps.

The Anker's Whip Coral Shrimp. Also known as the Barred Wire Coral Shrimp. Taken using fluorescence photography while diving in Tulamben, Bali. Kim Briers

Hope for the Future

Though named for their jet-black skeletons, the vibrant wire corals host many other species. Next time you see one underwater look closely for them - they make great underwater photography subjects. The yellow wire coral's remarkable resilience fast growth rate and heat tolerance means with conservation efforts they can quickly recover from over-harvesting.

References

Godefroid M. et al (2021), Perspectives on working underwater with black coral nubbins (Cnidaria: Antipatharia): The case of Cirrhipathes anguina (Dana, 1846), Journal of Experimental Marine Biology and Ecology, Vol 545, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jembe.2021.151645.

Terrana, L. et al (2019). Assessing trophic relationships between shallow-water black corals (Antipatharia) and their symbionts using stable isotopes. Belgian Journal of Zoology, 149. https://doi.org/10.26496/bjz.2019.33

Bo M, et al. Growth strategies of whip black corals (Cnidaria: Antipatharia) in the Bunaken Marine Park (Celebes Sea, Indonesia). Marine Biodiversity Records. 2009;2:e54. doi:10.1017/S1755267209000712

Why black corals aren't black (and 7 other surprising facts). SCUBA News, 28 September 2025

Diving news from around the World

Where to dive with manta rays 17 September was World Manta Day. Awesome to see underwater, where and when to go diving to see these magnificent creatures.

Dinner table deception: deliberately mislabelled endangered sharks being sold in US stores When you buy shark meat in the U.S., you may be getting a different species - including endangered hammerheads that contains high levels of mercury, all due to widespread mislabelling.

Nearly 80% of whale sharks in this marine tourism hotspot have scars caused by people Simple modifications to fishing platforms and boats should be effective in protecting the whale sharks from injury.

Are farmed oysters, mussels and clams the ultimate green foods? You can feast guilt-free on farmed oysters and mussels as their production can have environmental benefits - but those probably don't include capturing carbon

Public strongly backs aim of 30% of land and sea set aside for nature, poll finds Survey of eight countries finds 82% of people support 30x30 biodiversity target, as progress stalls on protected areas

Why are manatees starving and what can we do to help? More algae blooms in Florida's waters means less food for its struggling manatees.

Resilient corals survive warming seas, but don't thrive Resilient coral growth predicted to decrease over next 3 decades, study finds

What climate change means for the Mediterranean Sea The semi-enclosed Med is warming faster and acidifying more strongly than the open ocean. What happens in the Mediterranean often foreshadows changes to be expected elsewhere. Every tenth of a degree counts.

Octopuses dream when asleep Octopuses may be vivid dreamers, flushing vibrant patterns on their skin while they sleep.

Study shows all octopus arms can do everything Every arm is capable of performing all action types, single arms perform multiple arm movements simultaneously and different arm movements were coordinated across several arms, showing complex motor control.

Tracking right whales the right way... by thinking small Accurately mapping the abundance of phytoplankton and zooplankton is improving our ability to predict the presence of North Atlantic right whales.

Maldives U-turn: shark fishing allowed again The Maldivian government is to lift the lifting of a 15-year ban on shark fishing in November, sparking concern from divers.

Solo Scuba Divers - Liveaboards without single supplements Top liveaboards for single travellers. Travelling on your own is a great way to meet other divers and there are a number of liveaboards with single cabins just perfect for your next dive trip.

---

SCUBA News is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Unported License. This means we are happy for you to reuse our material for both commercial and non-commercial use as long as you: credit the name of the author, link back to the SCUBA Travel website and say if you have made any changes. Most photos though, are copyright the photographer. Please get in touch for details.

Photo credits: Tim Nicholson, Jill Studholme, Ryburn et al/CC BY 4.0, Kim Briers, Carol Buchanan/DepositPhotos, divebooker.com

UNSUBSCRIBING
Visit {?$optout_link?} to remove yourself from the mailing list. Any problems contact [email protected].

ADVERTISING
Should you wish to advertise in SCUBA News, please see the special offers at
https://www.scubatravel.co.uk/newsad.html
Other advertising opportunities are at
https://www.scubatravel.co.uk/diving-advertising.html

CONTACTING THE EDITOR
Please send your letters or press releases to:
Jill Studholme
SCUBA News
The Cliff

DE6 2HR
UK
[email protected]

---

SCUBA News (ISSN 1476-8011)

Every month we send out a free newsletter featuring the best diving areas, underwater life, diving book reviews and interviews with authors. To receive this please fill in your e-mail address below. For an archive of previous issues see the SCUBA News page.