Prof. Dr. James Davis Reimer, Japan
Info
Pleurocorallium elatius is a deep-sea coral that is only native to the waters around Japan and the Philippines, where it only occurs at very great depths.
These corals can only be filmed with a deep-sea submarine and collected for identification and examination.
As a result, very few people will be lucky enough to see the azooxanthellate coral in person.
Corals of the Coralliidae family are known for their red or pink skeletons, which have been used as ornaments, in medicine, for talismans and as currency since ancient times. They are therefore considered “precious corals” and have been routinely harvested in the Mediterranean for at least 5000 years.
Products of Corallium rubrum (Linnaeus, 1758) were found from a Stone Age monument, about 25,000 years old, in Germany, precious corals and shells were discovered in Lausanne, Switzerland [estimated to be about 30,000 years old.
The first record of collecting precious corals in Japan dates back to 1812, when a fisherman found a precious coral caught in his net.
The harvesting of these corals continues to this day in the Kochi, Kagoshima and Okinawa regions of Japan
Despite all the beauty and perseverance involved in their processing, we should consider whether the same applies to these corals as to elephants (ivory) - it is better to let the animals live!
Further interesting information about corals of the families Coralliidae u
Source:
Journal of Marine Biology
Volume 2012 (2012), Article ID 519091, 14 pages
http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2012/519091
Research Article
Histological Examination of Precious Corals from the Ryukyu Archipelago
Masanori Nonaka, Masaru Nakamura, Makoto Tsukahara, and James Davis Reimer3
These corals can only be filmed with a deep-sea submarine and collected for identification and examination.
As a result, very few people will be lucky enough to see the azooxanthellate coral in person.
Corals of the Coralliidae family are known for their red or pink skeletons, which have been used as ornaments, in medicine, for talismans and as currency since ancient times. They are therefore considered “precious corals” and have been routinely harvested in the Mediterranean for at least 5000 years.
Products of Corallium rubrum (Linnaeus, 1758) were found from a Stone Age monument, about 25,000 years old, in Germany, precious corals and shells were discovered in Lausanne, Switzerland [estimated to be about 30,000 years old.
The first record of collecting precious corals in Japan dates back to 1812, when a fisherman found a precious coral caught in his net.
The harvesting of these corals continues to this day in the Kochi, Kagoshima and Okinawa regions of Japan
Despite all the beauty and perseverance involved in their processing, we should consider whether the same applies to these corals as to elephants (ivory) - it is better to let the animals live!
Further interesting information about corals of the families Coralliidae u
Source:
Journal of Marine Biology
Volume 2012 (2012), Article ID 519091, 14 pages
http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2012/519091
Research Article
Histological Examination of Precious Corals from the Ryukyu Archipelago
Masanori Nonaka, Masaru Nakamura, Makoto Tsukahara, and James Davis Reimer3
