©Andy: A colony of Acropora humilis showing a yellowish-brown colouration and typical short compact branches with large axial polyps
Colours
Distinguishing features
This species is digitate, with compact branches and a large axial polyp. Radial corallites are mostly one size, and increase only slightly in size down the branch. Colours include cream, pink, brownish-yellow, and blue-purple. Distinguish from A. gemmifera which has large and small radial corallites, with the large ones increasing in size down the branch.
Size
- Size data has not been obtained.
Synonyms
Similar taxa
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Animalia:
species: Acropora gemmifera
has radial corallites in two sizes with the larger ones increasing in size down the branch. (Contributed by Andy Lewis)
Comments
Plate Coral: “I hate the Butterflyfish the most, with that pointy mouth that sticks right into you”
Pine Coral: “It’s the Parrotfish I hate, they’re a bunch of rainbow coloured walrus-toothed pigs that take chunks out of every part of you and then poo on top of you”
Bushy Plate Coral: “at least you don’t have a family of Filefish buzzing around you constantly sucking up your flesh and defending you as if you belong to them”
Plate Coral: “that’s nothing, I live next to a slimey-fingered Spaghetti Coral that releases clouds of toxic snot over me”
Boulder Coral: “I have a Sea Urchin eating holes under me, I hate them”
Antler Coral: “we hate you, you fat old rock”
Plate Coral: “what about those Stomach-Spewing Want-to-be-Punk Starfish”
Everyone: “I Hate them”
Staghorn Coral: “what I hate most of all is those Hansel & Gretel plankton-feeding Angelfish that swim over you all smiley and happy at spawning time and eat as many of your children as they can suck in.”
Finger Coral: “I hate not having legs, or an Iron Man suit, an underwater one that could blast the hell out of them all”
by David Witherall
Distribution
Distribution and habitat preferences
Upper reef slopes, reef crests and shallow reef flats.
Abundant in shallow habitats around Lizard Island.
Behaviour
Like most Acroporidae, this species is a hermaphrodite broadcast spawner, releasing gametes shortly after dark in the few days after the full moon in the warmer months between November and February.
A. humilis is a member of a digitate species complex which also includes A. gemmifera, A. monticulosa, A. samoensis, and A digitifera. However Wolstenholme (2004) also recognised another 7 intermediate morphs at Lizard Island which may well prove to be seperate species. Persons interested in the correct identification of digitate Acroporid corals should consult this reference, in particular Table 1 which lists the morphological characteristics of each taxon.
Web resources
References
- Abrego, D., M.J.H. Van Oppen and B.L. Willis (2009). Onset of algal endosymbiont specificity varies among closely related species of Acropora corals during early ontogeny, Molecular Ecology, 18: 3532-3543.
- Aldredge, A.L. and J.M. King (1977). Distribution, abundance and substrate preference of demersal zooplankton at Lizard Island lagoon, Great Barrier Reef, Marine Biology, 41: 317-333. LIRS catalog number 1.
- Alvarez-Noriega, M., A.H. Baird,2, M. Dornelas, J.S. Madin, V.R. Cumbo, and S.R. Connolly (2016). Fecundity and the demographic strategies of coral morphologies, Ecology, 97(12): 3485-3493. LIRS catalog number 2048.
- View all references