Lophelia pertusa is an azooxanthellate (i.e., has no symbiotic photosynthetic algal partner) scleractinian ("stony") coral. It is thought to be distributed throughout the world oceans, except in polar seas, and forms deep-water reefs on continental slopes, mid-oceanic ridges and fjords. It is the main reef-building species in the northeast Atlantic. It is also a major constituent of deep reefs off the eastern US coast in the western North Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico. The shallowest record for L. pertusa is in a Norwegian fjord (39 meters); more typically, this species is found between around 200 and 1000 meters in depth, although it may occur down to 1200 meters or more. Deep reefs provide habitat for an ecologically diverse megafauna, are likely centuries old, and little is known about basic biology, larval dispersal, and connectivity between reefs (LeGoff-Vitry et al. 2004 and references therein; Morrison et al. 2008)