orbicella faveolata.
orbicella faveolata.is an important reef-building coral that forms large mountainous colonies. Juvenile corals are rather mundane, while adult colonies can grow to an impressive size.
orbicella.grows by encrusting. A new colony can start from a single polyp which grows outward from the base. You can see a slightly lighter color on the growing edge of the colony where new polyps are emerging.
orbicella.grows into thick hardy colonies which make the ideal candidate for fragmentation and coral restoration. Small 15-20mm fragments can be cut from adult colonies using a钻石带锯。这些片段可以粘在陶瓷碎片塞上并在盐水中生长，直到它们的大小增加或三倍。
At this point, tinyorbicella.colonies can be transplanted back to the reef. As they grow their skeletons add a considerable mass to the reef, and over time they can help stabilize loose rocks or decaying reef structure.
Mountainous Star Coral
The common name for this coral is Mountainous Star Coral because of it’s size and that it creates characteristic peaks and ridges like a mountain. Polyps are small usually 5mm across. When polyps are retractedorbicella.corallites have tiny grooves giving it a star like appearance.
There are three species of Orbicella.O. faveolata, O. annularis,和O。franksi。如果你不能刚刚告诉这三个刚刚分开，请不要担心。如果这是你第一次尝试识别orbicella., instead focus on identifying the polyps and corallites. Once you’re a master at spottingorbicella., start trying to notice the difference between the three species.
orbicella.is coral which could be overlooked. From a few meters away you might think this coral is just a rock, or simply consider it as part of the reef. Divers are often more focused on looking for fish, turtles, rays, and eels than trying to describe coral.
Even divemasters and instructors will tend to know the perfect hideouts where to spot these critters, while not being able to name a handful of coral species. I myself was guilty of this which is what inspired me to write about coral identification.
Until recentlyorbicella.was classified as part of the Montastrea family. You can still find this coral listed as Montastrea faveolata, however, the current description isorbicella.。您仍然可能会发现这个珊瑚列为Montastreaespecially in older printed coral guides.
The珊瑚Diaries系列是我们在世界各地潜水时看到的珊瑚列表。我们已经创建了这个系列，以便您可以了解有关珊瑚的更多信息，以及如何在珊瑚礁上识别它们。我们鼓励您向我们发送您的珊瑚图片并在下面的部分中发表评论，以了解更多关于潜水时发现的有趣物种的信息。
