These resources are available to those interested in hard coral taxonomy or field identification. The downloadable contents are for personal use only and Project Phoenix and members assume no responsibility for any special, direct, indirect, consequential, or incidental damages arising out of or in connection with the use of these contents. Please note that the external links are not provided or maintained by us and therefore we cannot guarantee the accuracy, timeliness, or completeness of the information on these external websites.
Protocols

A Protocol for Coral Collection & Curation
(PDF: 1.8 MB)
A protocol we use to collect and curate coral specimens for taxonomic research purposes
Field Guides

Hard Corals of the Coral Sea
(PDF: 25 MB)
An illustrated overview of 147 species, 60 genera of hard corals observed in the Coral Sea

The Amun Ini House Reef Guide
(PDF: 1.2 MB)
An illustrated 1 page guide to commonly found hard coral species in Bohol, Philippines
Access to Type Material
The following institutions are some of the locations the physical type material has been deposited. Some have online catalogues of their collections that include type material and occasionally, this includes image of the type material available for downloading. At some institutions, curators will also organise images on request. Learn more about type material here.
Country | Museum | URL |
---|---|---|
Australia | Australian Museum | Collection search |
Australia | Museum of Tropical Queensland, Queensland Museum Network | Collection search |
Australia | Western Australian Museum | Collection search |
Austria | Naturhistorisches Museum Wien | Museum website |
France | Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle | Collection search |
Germany | Hessisches Landesmuseum Darmstadt | Museum website |
Germany | Museum für Naturkunde Berlin | Museum website |
Germany | Stiftung Historische Museen Hamburg | Museum website |
Italy | Museo Regionale Di Scienze Naturali | Museum website Collection via Google |
Philippines | Institute of Environmental and Marine Sciences, Silliman University | Institution website |
Philippines | Department of Biology, University of San Carlos | Institution website |
Philippines | University of the Philippines Diliman Marine Science Institute | Institution website |
Russia | A.V. Zhirmunsky National Scientific Center of Marine Biology, Far East Branch, Russian Academy of Sciences | Institution website |
South Africa | Oceanographic Research Institute, South African Association for Marine Biological Research | Institution website |
South Africa | South African Museum, Iziko Museums of South Africa | Museum website |
UK | Natural History Museum | Collection search |
USA | The Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University | Museum website |
USA | National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution | Collection search |
USA | Peabody Essex Museum | Museum website |
USA | Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History | Collection search |
Accessing Type Localities
An extensive and ongoing project has involved the identification of type locations for all nominal species through the examination of the original type material and associated texts. While this work is still in progress, we have been able to produce a map of the type locations for coral species originally described from the Great Barrier Reef shown below. We will continue to add species type locations in future.
To view the full list of species currently in this map, click “view larger map” in the top right corner.
Systematics

Corals old-to-new Conversion List
(Excel: 70 KB)
The names of many coral species have changed most often because they have been moved from one genera/families to another. All of these changes in the order Scleractinia are recorded in meticulous detail by Prof. Bert Hoeksema and Dr. Stephen Cairns at World Register of Marine Species (WoRMS), however, this spreadsheet offers a quick way to convert the old species names to the new. If you need to be sure of the current new names, please double check at WoRMS.

Nemenzo Virtual Museum
by coenomap.org
An online repository of Francisco Nemenzo’s coral taxonomic work in the Philippines

Corallosphere
by corallosphere.org
Compilation of taxonomic information on extant and extinct scleractinian corals
Seminars
Identification Guides by External Organisations

Coral Finder 2021
by Russell Kelley, BYOGUIDES
The Coral Compactus: Western Australia Hard Coral Genus Identification Guide
by Zoe Richards and Western Australian Museum