10 Stunning Plants and Sea Creatures on the Ocean Floor

The ocean is full of uncharted territory—and of breathtaking natural wonders that look as though they might hail from another planet. Underwater plants and sea life are teeming with color and fascinating features like tentacles, bioluminescence, jelly-like skin, and ornamental shells. Aquatic scenes can look as dark and celestial as the night sky or as bright and kaleidoscopic as a flower garden.

From sea anemones to sun coral, these 10 stunning underwater organisms offer an ethereal beauty hard to reproduce on land.

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White-Plumed Anemone

Vibrant underwater reef with white metridium anemones — Brent Durand / Getty Images

There are more than 1,200 species of sea anemone in the ocean and these creatures are responsible for some of the most stunning colors and shapes you'll find underwater. The white-plumed anemone is among the most captivating of anemone species because of its odd cauliflower floret-esque appearance.

This columnal plant can grow as tall as three feet and thrives in cold water from Alaska to San Diego. And while the soft pouf at the top looks like a nice place for a fish nap, those tentacles are the anemone's primary tool for stinging and catching prey.

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Red Sea Whip

Red whip coral surrounded by variety of colorful coral reef — Giordano Cipriani / Getty Images

The red sea whip is what you might expect a crimson-headed cartoon character's hair to look like if upside down. This soft coral belongs to the order Alcyonacea and the family Ellisellidae. Soft corals don't have the calcium carbonate skeletons found in hard corals, so their malleable tentacles dance with the water. Each branch of the sea whip contains countless coral polyps (small tubes fringed with tentacles) that gather food.

Located primarily in shallow waters in the tropics and subtropics, the red sea whip coral is found across the world. Like the red whip, other corals of the Ellisellidae family are usually brightly colored and they come in different shapes.

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Green Sea Anemone

This vibrant green sea anemone bears a strong resemblance to the land-based Anastasia flower, a type of spider chrysanthemum. Most of the anemone’s color occurs because of the symbiotic relationship it has with the photosynthetic organisms that live in its tissues. Like other anemones, these attach themselves to hard surfaces—such as rocks and coral reefs—to wait for fish that inadvertently swim into their stinging tentacles.

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Purple Coral

The vibrant hue of this lilac-looking purple coral isn't the only striking thing about it: Though the color is rare, acropora coral is one of the most plentiful types of coral. This beautiful purple coral is immensely beneficial, too, as it provides a habitat for fish and other sea life.

The purple coral is also a reef-building species, which means it's often the first on the scene of a new reef, and it spreads to provide homes for other corals.

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Clownfish

Only one kind of fish is immune to the stings of the anemone, and, as anyone who has seen Finding Nemo knows, it’s the beautifully colored clownfish. Not all clownfish or all sea anemones can coexist, but for those that can, the relationship is mutually beneficial. The symbiotic process between the two is highly evolved and involves the clownfish developing a thick mucus layer to protect it from the anemone’s powerful sting.

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Sun Coral

Despite the name, sun coral is a species of coral that doesn't require much sunlight. It is a deep-sea dweller that makes its home in caves and other dark spaces. Sun Coral gets the energy it needs (and its yellow to bright-orange color) by feeding on zooplankton. This coral is also the only stony coral that sets up permanent digs in the Caribbean after invading the ocean in the ballasts of ships coming from the Indo-Pacific, the coral's native ocean.

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Kelp

Kelp is especially stunning when seen from below because it can look like a lush, leafy woodland. Nutrient-rich kelp may show up on the beach as torn piles of seaweed, but underwater it has a whole different life. A type of brown algae, this plant can grow up to 18 inches per day and can reach depths of up to 131 feet—hence why its habitat is called a kelp forest.

When scientists stumbled upon a kelp forest in the Pacific Ocean in 2007, the discovery highlighted how much we still have to learn about the world's waters. Before this discovery, biologists thought kelp could not grow in warm tropical waters.

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Soft Coral

Feathery soft corals make up bouquets of brightly-colored sea life. Soft corals are members of the Octocorallia subclass, named for their "eightfold radial symmetry," which means they have eight smaller pieces that branch off of each main tube to give the downy appearance.

Soft corals, having a significant variation in shape and size, can thrive in deep water or shallow tropical water.

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Open Brain Coral

It's clear how open brain coral got its name: The invertebrate—known scientifically as Trachyphyllia—exhibits a flabello-meandroid growth pattern in which curling valleys and fleshy walls are visible on its exterior.

A type of stony coral, open brain coral are near threatened due to the reduction of coral reef habitat and harvesting for aquariums. This species of coral is small— less than eight inches—and both solitary and colonial. It may be found among other types of free-living coral. Soft coral thrives in the warm, shallow waters of the Indo-Pacific.

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Coral Reef

Clownfish swimming around colorful coral in blue water — Giordano Cipriani / Getty Images

Not only will you find remarkable creatures in coral reefs; you'll also find that the reefs themselves are quite stunning. Coral varies in shape, size, and texture, but it is perhaps most admired for its variegation. The different colors of coral are a result of photosynthetic pigments, fluorescent proteins, and nonfluorescent chromoproteins.

Coral's brilliant colors are severely threatened, however, by warming water temperatures. Rising temperatures result in a reduction in the amount of microscopic algae that produce the food corals need to survive, which can destroy coral or cause severe damage to its ecosystem. As of 2021, coral bleaching impacted some 75% of reefs globally.

Even the largest coral reef system in the world, the Great Barrier Reef, is dying; pollution and overfishing are other severe threats to coral reefs.

What Makes Underwater Plants and Sea Life So Pretty?

Bright colors are some of the main reasons aquatic flora and fauna are so stunning. In the ocean, bright colors help animals deter predators and blend in better with their environments. Coral contains certain proteins that make them colorful, and the fish that live among them have evolved to exhibit those same colors.

As for coral's complex patterns, some experts believe these to be an example of disruptive coloration, a form of camouflage that utilizes busy patterns to allow the lifeform to blend in with variable, contrasting backgrounds.