Kamaros Posted March 10 Share Posted March 10 Does anybody have any recommendations for resources to help identify different categories of corals and sponges? I've recently started keywording my images with the help of the Humann/DeLoach identification books (RIP to the former, who passed away last month), but never have any idea if the thing occupying 60% of my reef scene is some sort of staghorn coral, gorgonian, etc. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Floris Bennema Posted April 29 Share Posted April 29 Not that there are many, but from which region? A photo uplad could help too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kamaros Posted April 29 Author Share Posted April 29 1 hour ago, Floris Bennema said: Not that there are many, but from which region? A photo uplad could help too. This was more of a general question about identifying corals and sponges from wherever I decide to travel to, not a request to identify something in a specific image. Of course, there's the option of posting here for help with a particular species, but I was hoping someone might have resources to make this more self-serve. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Davide DB Posted April 29 Share Posted April 29 Didn't you find anything useful here? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kamaros Posted April 29 Author Share Posted April 29 51 minutes ago, Davide DB said: Didn't you find anything useful here? The Caribbean is well-covered because Humann/DeLoach had a dedicated Reef Coral Identification book for that region, and I think some of the Red Sea books cover corals as well, but coverage is lacking for other regions. For example, most of the books for the Pacific specialize in covering fish or nudibranchs (at least, that's what their names suggest; I didn't actually look at the table of contents for each book to confirm), and the one Reef Creature book (which I own) is pretty limited - there's only one page on reef-building corals, one page on gorgonians, two pages on sponges, etc. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Davide DB Posted April 30 Share Posted April 30 Maybe this one is better: Corals - A guide to the identification of the main genera of coral reef builders of the Indo-Pacific Region Rossi G (2021) Italia onlus, Ancona. 441 pp. ISBN 978-88-944253-5-2 - 66 genera described - 900 pictures - Identification key Down to the page here: https://www.reefcheckmed.org/italiano/sea-store/ I know the author and I have the Italian version. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris Ross Posted April 30 Share Posted April 30 Could be related to the number of species present that are hard to ID potentially unless you have a specimen and/or specialist knowledge? The Caribbean has 60-70 coral species while the indo pacific has 10 times that number. Sponges are also difficult to ID by all accounts. This website seems to have a lot of info about Corals in the Indo-pacific. Reef Builders Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Giancarlo M. Posted April 30 Share Posted April 30 This is the best site for coral identification, the book is hard to find http://www.coralsoftheworld.org/page/home/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Davide DB Posted April 30 Share Posted April 30 5 hours ago, Giancarlo M. said: This is the best site for coral identification, the book is hard to find http://www.coralsoftheworld.org/page/home/ Terrific resource! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ErikaNydaria Posted May 11 Share Posted May 11 (edited) Also recommend Coral Finder and Reef Finder: https://byoguides.com/ This and many others are based on Veron (Corals of the World) but heads up that the taxonomy is changing...Check out Project Phoenix, run by coral taxonomists who are revisiting the "identity of all of the 2500+ nominal species of hermatypic (reef-building) corals needs to be tested using multiple lines of evidence, including molecular, morphological, ecological, biological and geographical data." https://coralprojectphoenix.org/resources/coral-of-the-moment/ Edited May 11 by ErikaNydaria 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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