Alcyonium glomeratum or red sea fingers is a species

Species

In biology, a species is one of the basic units of biological classification and a taxonomic rank. A species is often defined as a group of organisms capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring. While in many cases this definition is adequate, more precise or differing measures are...

 of soft coral

Alcyonacea

The Alcyonacea, or the soft corals are an order of corals which do not produce calcium carbonate skeletons. Soft corals contain minute, spiny skeletal elements called sclerites. Aside from their scientific utility in species identification, sclerites give these corals some degree of support and...

 in the Alcyoniidae

Alcyoniidae

Alcyoniidae is a family of leathery or soft corals in the phylum Cnidaria.-Description:A colony of leathery coral is stiff, hard and inflexible. It is composed of tiny polyps projecting from a shared leathery tissue...

 family. It is found around the southern and western coasts of Britain and Ireland.

Description

Red sea fingers is similar in shape to Alcyonium digitatum

Alcyonium digitatum

Alcyonium digitatum or dead man's fingers is a species of soft coral in the Alcyoniidae family. It is found around the coasts of the northern Atlantic Ocean.-Description:...

but is usually blood red or rust coloured. The finger-shaped lobes are slender and can be up to thirty centimetres long. The polyps are white and each one has eight pinnate

Pinnate

Pinnate is a term used to describe feather-like or multi-divided features arising from both sides of a common axis in plant or animal structures, and comes from the Latin word pinna meaning "feather", "wing", or "fin". A similar term is pectinate, which refers to a comb-like arrangement of parts...

 tentacles which give the colony a feathery appearance when they are extended.

Distribution

This coral is found on the west coast of Britain and Ireland, north to western Scotland and south to the Bay of Biscay

Bay of Biscay

The Bay of Biscay is a gulf of the northeast Atlantic Ocean located south of the Celtic Sea. It lies along the western coast of France from Brest south to the Spanish border, and the northern coast of Spain west to Cape Ortegal, and is named in English after the province of Biscay, in the Spanish...

. It is quite localised but may be abundant in places.

Habitat

This coral is found on bedrock in gullies, crevices and under overhangs in sheltered locations in the sublittoral zone

Neritic zone

The neritic zone, also called coastal waters, the coastal ocean or the sublittoral zone, is the part of the ocean extending from the low tide mark to the edge of the continental shelf, with a relatively shallow depth extending to about 200 meters...

at depths exceeding ten metres. It favours open water on the lee side of islands and rocks.