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Sunset Cup Coral
Leptopsammia pruvoti
Sunset cup coral © Paul Kay
The stunning yellow or orange sunset cup coral has a hard skeleton beneath almost 100 stinging tentacles. It does not form reefs, but occurs in groups of up to several hundred on rocky shores from 10- 40m deep, often in shady places, such as under overhangs and in caves or gullies.
Individual sunset cup corals appear to be robust and cope well with some environmental changes. Despite this, they only occur in a very few places in Britain, and their populations are declining. Numbers of sunset cup corals on Lundy island fell by almost a quarter in one recent four year period. They no longer occur at all near Ilfracombe in north Devon.
One of the reasons for their lack of success in British waters is that they are hanging on at the northern extreme of their geographical range, and so only inhabit the most ideal locations. The pockets of sunset cup corals that are found here may be a relic of a more extensive spread of the animals that was known to have occurred approximately 700 years ago.
Because the sunset cup corals struggle to survive in these northern conditions, their ability to reproduce may be affected. Larvae is sometimes carried up from southern Europe, but these water masses only move into southwest England about every 25 years. The skeletons of cup corals can be weakened by boring animals (such as horseshoe and fan worms and burrowing bivalve shells) and then dislodged by foraging wrasse or by divers’ fins.
Brief description of European distribution
The sunset cup coral occurs in a small number of isolated locations, in south-west of England. It was first recorded in Britain in 1969, from Lundy Island. In other parts of the northeast Atlantic, it has been recorded in the Channel Isles, Brittany and Portugal and occurs widely in the Mediterranean, especially in caves.
Conservation status / need
UKBAP Priority Species
Nationally rare marine species
In England, it is a species of principal importance for the purpose of conservation of biodiversity under the Natural Environment and Rural Communities Act 2006
Further information sources
Sunset Cup Coral (Leptopsammia pruvoti)
UK Biodiversity Action Plan website
Sunset cup coral - Leptopsammia pruvoti Marine life information network
Leptopsammia pruvoti Encyclopedia of Marine Life of Britain and Ireland
Interesting fact
Fossils of the hard parts of cup corals have been found in rocks formed over 400 million years ago. Because we can study modern cup corals, fossils tell us a lot about what ancient seas were like.
