Author: Andrew Baird A team from Project Phoenix visited the coastal town of Hervey Bay as guests of the Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service & Partnerships to assess the biodiversity of the corals of the Great Sandy Marine Park (GSMP) in October 2023. Given the proximity to the coast and its high latitude, it might … Continue reading The Corals of the Great Sandy Marine Park, Queensland (AU)
Author: Admin
A big win for citizen science in Australia’s Indian Ocean Territories Marine Parks
A citizen science project in the Indian Ocean Territories (IOT) Marine Parks funded by Parks Australia has just produced some novel and important data to assist in the conservation and management of the IOT. Following a training workshop run by Professor Andrew Baird and Dr Jean-Paul Hobbs from James Cook University on Christmas Island in … Continue reading A big win for citizen science in Australia’s Indian Ocean Territories Marine Parks
New paper on Montipora fauna of Daito Islands in Okinawa
A new open access article describing the Montipora fauna of the remote Daito Islands in Okinawa, Japan is now available online at Fauna Ryukyuana. The fauna includes M. stalagmites Ortmann, 1888, the first record of this species since its original description.
Public talk on Magnetic Island, Australia
Andrew Baird will be giving a presentation on the Corals of Magnetic Island on Thursday 2nd November 2023 at 18:30 at the Magnetic Island Brewery, Picnic Bay. The talk is free and free return tickets on the ferry are available from Sealink. Please contact andrew.baird[at]jcu.edu.au if you would like to take advantage of the ferry tickets.
The Indian Ocean Territories (IOT), Australia
Author: Andrew Baird Australia's Indian Ocean Territories (IOT) are made up of Cocos (Keeling) Island and Christmas Island, 1000s of km to west of Western Australia. Cocos (Keeling) Island is one of the most isolated atolls in the world. Cocos (Keeling) Island is famous, among other things, for being the first atoll visited by Charles … Continue reading The Indian Ocean Territories (IOT), Australia
The Montipora spp. of the Blue Holes of Cocos Lagoon
Author: Andrew Baird The Blue Holes at the southern end of the Cocos Island Lagoon seem to be a particular rich habitat in terms of novel species with potentially three new Montipora species (Fig. 1). The Blue Holes are a highly unusual habitat and very prominent in the lagoon when viewed on Google Earth. The holes are mostly circular and range in size from 10s to 100s of metres in … Continue reading The Montipora spp. of the Blue Holes of Cocos Lagoon
New paper: “A tenuis relationship: traditional taxonomy obscures systematics and biogeography of the ‘Acropora tenuis’(Scleractinia: Acroporidae) species complex.”
Author: Andrew Baird The team at Project Phoenix has just published a paper in the Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society titled “A tenuis relationship: traditional taxonomy obscures systematics and biogeography of the ‘Acropora tenuis’ (Scleractinia: Acroporidae) species complex.” The paper is open access and available here. In the words of one of the reviewers, "This … Continue reading New paper: “A tenuis relationship: traditional taxonomy obscures systematics and biogeography of the ‘Acropora tenuis’(Scleractinia: Acroporidae) species complex.”
Interview article with ABC on recent Ningaloo Project
Check out this recent ABC article by Peter de Kruijff on Project Phoenix’s recent project, assessing the biodiversity of coral on the Ningaloo Reef. Thank you Peter and ABC for this opportunity!
Corals of Moorea
Author: Andrew Baird The coral fauna of French Polynesia is an important part of the taxonomic puzzle. Tahiti, in particular, has been visited by numerous expeditions including the US Exploring Expedition, the British led Challenger Expedition, and more recently the Tara Oceans Expedition. All these expeditions collected specimens that serve as type material for some … Continue reading Corals of Moorea
Acropora protoeiformis (Saville-Kent, 1897)
Author: Andrew Baird Nominal species: Madrepora protoeiformis Saville-Kent, 1897 One of the more distinctive corals on the reefs of Ningaloo (Western Australia) is Acropora protoeiformis originally described by Saville-Kent in 1897 in his classic travelogue “The Naturalist in Australia”, with his characteristic flourish: “To return to the subject of the Abrolhos corals, there was one form … notable for its … Continue reading Acropora protoeiformis (Saville-Kent, 1897)
Project Phoenix 