100% Natural High Quality Red Italian Sea Coral 5x3mm Tube Beads, (10 inch Strands)

Natural RED color, high quality. As seen in photo, beads are slightly irregular size and may be slightly off the measurement. This is a natural product and may contain a few pits and irregularities.

Precious coral, or red coral, is the common name given to a genus of marine corals, Corallium. The distinguishing characteristic of precious corals is their durable and intensely colored red or pink-orange skeleton, which is used for making jewelry.  Red corals grow on rocky seabottom with low sedimentation, typically in dark environments—either in the depths or in dark caverns or crevices. The original species, C. rubrum (formerly Gorgonia nobilis), is found mainly in the Mediterranean Sea. It grows at depths from 10 to 300 meters below sea level, although the shallower of these habitats have been largely depleted by harvesting.^[1] In the underwater caves of Alghero, Sardinia (the "Coral Riviera") it grows at depth from 4 to 35 meters.