Gorgons - Illustrated drawing from life - Ernst Haeckel, Kunstformen der Natur

Reproduction engraving of: Gorgons

Original title Gorgonida - Gorgones

Poster of Gorgonia - Cnidarians of the class Corals (Order of hard corals, family of gorgonians)

Illustration from the book Kunstformen der Natur, which is a collection of artistic lithographs of natural sciences published by the German biologist Ernst Haeckel between 1899 and 1904.

This naturalistic illustration is part of an overall style inspired by Ernst Haeckel, which greatly influenced the emerging Art Nouveau movement at the beginning of the ^20th century. This work, illustrating the impressive beauty and great diversity of the biological world, was complemented by a certain amount of scientific information, some excerpts of which are reproduced below.

This information is over 120 years old and some of it may be outdated!

Scientific classification:

 Cnidarian Phylum (Cnidaria)
Class Anthozoa (Anthozoa)
Legion of Alcyonarians (Alcyonaria)
Order Octocorallia (Octocoralla).

Scientific notice (extract) accompanying the poster print of Gorgonida - Gorgones :

The gorgonian family (Gorgonida) forms a form-rich group (with over 300 species) within the order Octocoralla. All corals in this family form imposing colonies or corms, attached to the seabed; many are distinguished by elegant shapes and bright colors (especially yellow, orange, red, purple). The individual polyps or coral persons that make up these stem-like or tree-like branched colonies are usually very small, often microscopic; they are arranged on the colony and its branches sometimes in regular rows, sometimes in whorls, sometimes irregularly. Each individual polyp (Figs. 1, 13, 15) bears a crown of eight pinnate tentacles; these can be either extended or folded at length, or folded and retracted (Fig. 9). The solid skeleton or supporting framework of gorgonians always consists of two different parts: an internal axial skeleton that forms a horny or calcified rod (not visible on our plate), and an external cortical skeleton in which the individual individuals are fixed. The polyps, whose main axis is directed perpendicular to the axis of the colony, are connected in the bark by numerous nutrient vessels; these gastric vessels branch off from the eight-rayed gastric cavities of the individual polyps. The soft bark acquires its solidity by the deposition of very numerous calcareous corpuscles (spicules). The shape of these spicules is very varied and often very elegant (Fig. 2, 3, 7, 14).

Species present on the naturalist board of Gorgons - Gorgonia :

• Gorgonia verrucosa
• Platycaulos danielsseni
• Explexaura parcyclados
• Primnoella biserialis
• Primnoella murrayi
• Stenella spinosa
• Juncella juncea
• Calyptrophora japonica
• Acanthogorgia longiflora
• Primnoella australasiae
• Calypterinus allmani
• Paramuricea spinosa
• Juncea barbadensis
• Anthomuricea argentea
• Calyptrophora myvillei