A newly discovered deep-sea coral solves a 100-year-old mystery!

Meet Paragorgia quitinosa, a bubblegum coral scientists observed at 670 meters deep on a seamount in the southeastern Pacific during the Schmidt Ocean Institute’s #NazcaHighSeas expedition in 2024. These corals can grow taller than a two-story building — with NO internal skeleton. Scientists have wondered for over a century: how? The answer: chitin — the same material in crab shells and beetle wings — forms an invisible network of tubes running through the entire colony, holding it all together. This is the first time chitin has ever been found in octocoral tissue. And because there are hundreds of skeleton-less octocoral species across the world's oceans, this discovery opens a window into the hidden architecture of an entire group of animals we thought we understood. The sample — found in international waters, in one of the least-explored places on Earth — turned out to be a reproductively active female, with developing eggs tucked inside her polyps. A special workshop, hosted by Ocean Census, brought together taxonomic experts to help accelerate the time needed to confirm this exciting discovery. Read the full paper, published in Scientific Reports: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-026-71127-8 Credit: ROV SuBastian / Schmidt Ocean Institute