Montastraea cavernosa
| Montastraea cavernosa | ||||||||||||
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Montastraea cavernosa |
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| Systematics | ||||||||||||
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Montastraea cavernosa | ||||||||||||
| Linnaeus , 1767 |
Montastraea cavernosa is a hard coral (Scleractinia). Like most hard corals, they are colonies made up of many thousands of individual polyps . A single polyp can reach a diameter of twelve millimeters, Montastraea cavernosa belongs to the large polyp hard corals. The entire colony grows dome-shaped and can be two meters high.
distribution
Montastraea cavernosa lives in the tropical western Atlantic , near the Bahamas , in the Caribbean and along the coast of Brazil to Rio de Janeiro . It is one of the most important reef building corals in the Caribbean. There is also a population in the eastern Atlantic, near the islands in the Gulf of Guinea . The coral grows at depths of one to 90 meters. In the south of the distribution area, the colonies only reach a diameter of one meter and form crust-like coatings on rocks.
literature
- Peter Wirtz: The hard corals of southern Brazil , in Der Meerwasseraquarianer, specialist magazine for seawater aquaristics, 2/2007, Rüdiger Latka Verlag
- Erhardt / Moosleitner: Mergus Sea Water Atlas Volume 2 , Mergus-Verlag, Melle, 1997, ISBN 3-88244-112-7
Web links
- Montastraea cavernosa inthe IUCN 2013 Red List of Threatened Species . Posted by: Aronson, R., Bruckner, A., Moore, J., Precht, B. & E. Weil, 2008. Retrieved January 4, 2014.