A collaboration between Soneva Fushi Resort, Soneva Conservation & Sustainability and Project Phoenix by Andrew Baird Andrew Baird and Charlotte Dale have recently returned from a collecting trip on Soneva Fushi in the Maldives. The Maldives are an important but poorly sampled area within the Indian Ocean and the coral fauna an important piece of … Continue reading Assessing Coral Diversity in the Maldives

By Andrew Baird I have just returned from a thoroughly enjoyable and productive trip to the Lee Kong Chan Natural History Museum in Singapore. The visit was hosted by my close friend and long-term collaborator Dr Danwei Huang and the National University of Singapore (Fig. 1) The primary aim of the trip was to search … Continue reading The Lee Kong Chan Natural History Museum in Singapore

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 … Continue reading The corals of north-Western Australia

Author: Andrew Baird Last year in July, I visited the Houtman-Abrolhos (HAI) with Dr Kate Quigley and colleagues to collect coral samples for a number of different projects including Kate’s ARC DECRA project looking at the potential for corals to adapt to climate change (Quigley et al. in press), Charlotte Dale’s PhD project on the Acropora of … Continue reading Houtman-Abrolhos Islands, July 2025

Author: Andrew Baird I have just returned from a research trip to Kenya. The trip included a workshop on coral taxonomy and a field trip to the coral reefs of Shimoni including a visit to Kisite Mpunguti Marine Park & Reserve. The corals of Kenya are very poorly known. To the best of my knowledge, no … Continue reading Kenya, March 2026

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

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

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

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