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Pachyseris is an interesting coral that has narrow ridges a few millimeters above the surface of the colony. The ridges can be long and narrow or short and contorted. There are five species of Pachyseris and this coral can be plating, encrusting or branching. Something you can find large areas covered in thin plating Pachyseris. This coral lacks are corallite structure and instead has septa-costea which run perpendicular to the narrow ridges.
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Pocillopora is a super common coral, you will find it from the shallowest to the deepest parts of the reef. There are almost twenty species of Pocillopora but they all have the same bumpy branches. Sometimes the branches are densly packed or wide and spread out. It depends on the species and where on the reef you find the coral.
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Montipora is one of the most abundant corals with over fifty species in the Indo Pacific. Montipora can be branching, encrusting, or form thin plates. The way to recognize Montipora is the small corallites which are embedded in the surface of the coral. This coral comes in a variety of colors and the rarest corals to look for have three or more colors in the same coral.
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Gonipora has long flowing polyps that look like tiny underwater flowers. But don’t be fooled this fleshy coral has a hard skeleton often shaped like a ball. Gonipora corals have 24 tentacles on the end of each polyp, and can be found in nearly every color imaginable. Gonipora looks similar to Alveopora, however, Alvepora has 12 tentacles, so if you find this coral and it has too many tentacles to count you’ve got yourself a Gonipora.
https://reefdivers.io/identify-20-stony-corals-indonesia/4456
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Which one is your favorite?
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Lobophyllia is a common coral, however, colonies of this coral can grow to extraordinary size. Lobophyllia colonies are made up of large fleshy polyps that grow together like lobes. The polyps can be compact and barely cover the corals skeleton or they can be large and fleshy covering the skeleton like a carpet. Lobophyllia can be found in all sort of colors with some common species being grey, brown, white, and red.
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Mycedium is one of the first corals I learned to identify. You can easily recognize this coral by the cup or nose-shaped corallites that always face towards the edges of the colony. Mycediums will have a large corallite in the center of the colony, and the coral grows outwards from that spot.
There are five species of Mycedium and the easiest to identify are Mycedium elephantotus which has the largest corallites and can cover large sections of reef. The second is Mycedium robokaki which forms plates with small corallites in a contrasting color from the coral tissue.
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Pectinia lactuca is easy to recognize because of the deep elongate valleys and walls. Most valleys can be traced from the colony center to the margins of the colony. There are nine species of Pectinia, however P. lectuca is the most distinct. The other species can be branching or boulder. The tissue is usually puffy which is a characteristic of Pectinia corals.
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Oxypora can be easy to spot if you know what to look for. This coral forms thin plates in a variety of colors. There are five species of Oxypora all with small poorly developed corallites. This coral is similar to Echinopora, Mycedium and Echinopyllia, but while they look similar from far away the corallites of Oxypora are the smallest of all these thin plating species.
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Caulastrea is a small coral with little trumpet-shaped corallites. Each Caulastrea stalk can a few cm long and have one of two corallites on the end. The corallite at the end is around 2cm or .5inch wide depending on the species. If you look close you can see some corallites which are pinches in the center like a figure eight, this is how a single corallite slowly splits in two. This coral can also be green, red, and, white, and brown, with some having all three colors.
https://reefdivers.io/identify-20-stony-corals-indonesia/4456
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Galaxea coral is common throughout the Indo-Pacific. You can notice this coral because of the crown shaped corallites. There are seven species of Galaxea and some can be encrusting and some can be branching. At night Galaxea will put out long stinging tentacles and when you find this coral you will notice other species keep their distance because Galaxea will sting anything it can reach.
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