Andrew Baird 03/10/2026
Walking along the coastline of Roebuck Bay, north-Western Australia you feel a long way from anywhere. However, the area around Broome including King’s Sound to the north is the type location for 12 nominal species, including the elusive Montigyra kenti Matthai 1928, sampled in the 1890s and not seen since, the much-misunderstood Acropora glauca (Brooke 1893) (see coral of the moment) and 5 species of Turbinaria.
Like much of northern Australia the turbidity caused by the up to 10m tidal range makes snorkelling pointless even if it weren’t for the crocs, sharks and stingers. So, sampling is rather old school. One waits for a low-low tide and then wanders out to collect the colonies that have been exposed. The best spot for this around Broome is Gantheaume Point, famous for dinosaur footprints that are also exposed during very low tides.
Over the course of an hour I imaged about 20 different species, including potential topotypes for 4 Turbinaria spp (Fig. 1). A times I can sympathise with some of the rampant synonymizing of the 1970s and 80s. Some of the morpho-species in these intertidal habitats look very similar over an extraordinary geographical range. See for example these colonies of Favites cf pentagona from locations including the Seychelles and the Great Barrier Reef (Fig. 2). While the term cryptic species is overused, particularly in the Acropora where you can generally tell closely related species apart if you know what to look for, there are some genuinely cryptic species for which the only way to identify them correctly will be to use molecular tools. In the case of the F. pentagona-complex our molecular data suggest at least 4 independently evolving lineages. A taxonomic framework that does not incorporate molecular lines of evidence is doomed to fail.
Unfortunately, my permit didn’t come through in time to collect but I hope to be back sometime soon.
Figure 1. Turbinaria spp in the rock pools of Gantheaume Point, Broome, Western Australia
Figure 2. Favites cf pentagona sampled a the following locations from top left clockwise Ogasawara Islands, Japan; Pelorus Island, Great Barrier Reef; the Seychelles; the Red Sea; Cocos Island, Australia; Gantheaume Point, Western Australia.
