Author: Andrew Baird Spawning is upon us again on the Great Barrier Reef and I have just returned from a few days on Orpheus Island Research Station. I was helping Dr Carrie Sims of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute find mature Acropora colonies from which to produce planulae for her research on the early life history of … Continue reading Orpheus Island Research Station November 2025
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Acropora kalindae Crosbie, Baird, Bridge & Rassmussen, 2025
Author: Augustine Crosbie Nominal species: Acropora kalindae Crosbie, Baird, Bridge & Rassmussen, 2025 Not every species discovery begins with exploring the unknown. Sometimes it begins with realising that something familiar is not what it was thought to be. The newly described species Acropora kalindae Crosbie, Baird, Bridge & Rassmussen, 2025 described in Rassmussen et al. (2025) was for decades mistakenly called Acropora … Continue reading Acropora kalindae Crosbie, Baird, Bridge & Rassmussen, 2025
The Mentawai – October 2025
Author: Andrew Baird "A marine biologist is never on holiday" -- James Bond, the Spy Who Loved Me (1977) I have just returned from a trip to the Mentawai Islands in West Sumatra, Indonesia, in October 2025. The Mentawai Islands are one of the premier surf destinations in the world with numerous world class waves … Continue reading The Mentawai – October 2025
The Seychelles
Author: Andrew Baird Andrew, Tom and Charlotte recently returned from a sampling trip to the Seychelles hunting topotypes and attempting to sample as many different species as possible over 10 days on D’Arros Island followed by a week on Praslin and Mahe. The Seychelles is an important destination for Project Phoenix’s revision of the taxonomy … Continue reading The Seychelles
Acropora tersa Rassmussen, Bridge & Baird, 2025
Author: Sage Rassmussen Nominal species: Acropora tersa Rassmussen, Bridge & Baird, 2025 Meet Acropora tersa, a coral that you may already know. This newly described species has been hiding in plain sight for years on the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) and across much of the western Pacific, often mistaken for its close relative, A. hyacinthus. Its journey to a formal … Continue reading Acropora tersa Rassmussen, Bridge & Baird, 2025
New Paper: “Patterns of coral spawning in the Palm Islands, Great Barrier Reef”
Congratulation to Hanaka Mera and colleagues for a paper just published in Coral Reefs that should be of interest to everyone working on coral spawning on the Great Barrier Reef. The paper is published with open access and can be viewed here. The paper explored coral spawning patterns using over 30 years of direct coral … Continue reading New Paper: “Patterns of coral spawning in the Palm Islands, Great Barrier Reef”
New paper: “The tables have turned: taxonomy, systematics and biogeography of the Acropora hyacinthus (Scleractinia: Acroporidae) complex”
In 2020 when Project Phoenix launched this website, we promised a revolution and thanks to some excellent work led by Dr Sage Rassmussen, we have just delivered with a taxonomic revision of the Acropora hyacinthus species complex (Rassmussen et al. 2025). To quote the singer-songwriter Tracy Chapman and to paraphrase the title of the paper published in … Continue reading New paper: “The tables have turned: taxonomy, systematics and biogeography of the Acropora hyacinthus (Scleractinia: Acroporidae) complex”
Leptoseris amitoriensis Veron, 1990
Author: Andrew Baird Nominal species: Leptoseris amitoriensis Veron, 1990 This note outlines some excellent detective work conducted by a group of Japanese coral scientists (Fujii et al. 2018) to establish that fragments of the holotype of Leptoseris amitoriensis Veron 1990, which was thought to be lost, do indeed exist. In addition, like many of these notes, there is … Continue reading Leptoseris amitoriensis Veron, 1990
Moreton Bay, December 2024
Author: Andrew Baird Andrew from James Cook University, Tom, Stefano and Merrick from Queensland Museum and Amanda from Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service visited the Moreton Bay Research Station on North Stradbroke Island in December 2024 (Fig. 1). The aim was to collect and curate all the hard coral species in the Moreton Bay region … Continue reading Moreton Bay, December 2024
New paper: “Identity of Montipora angulata (Lamarck, 1816) (Scleractinia, Acroporidae)”
In a new open access paper in Galaxea, Journal of Coral Reef Studies, Nomura et al. (2024) redescribe Montipora angulata (Lamarck, 1816) through reference to the type material and field specimens from Japan, and revisit the taxonomic status of morphologically similar species through comparison of the type material. Due to the poor taxonomic resolution of current molecular markers in … Continue reading New paper: “Identity of Montipora angulata (Lamarck, 1816) (Scleractinia, Acroporidae)”
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