Hyacinth table coral
Acropora hyacinthus
Valid name (WoRMS, AphiaID 207044, checked 2026-10-31).
- English
- Hyacinth table coral
- Scientific
- Acropora hyacinthus
- Dhivehi
- No recorded Dhivehi name
- Group
- Hard corals
- Depth and habitat
- Reef-associated, recorded from 0 to 52 m
- IUCN status
- EN · EndangeredEndangered (EN), assessed 2023CITES Appendix II
Description
A table coral that forms flat, rounded plates, often in overlapping tiers, with many fine, short upright branchlets packed across the upper surface. From the side the plates look thin and the outline is often rosette-like. Colonies are cream, brown, green or blue-grey and grow on upper reef slopes and reef edges. It is one of the main table corals on Indian Ocean reefs and was badly hit by mass bleaching.
In the Maldives
Recorded from the Maldives: museum specimens (n=7, QM); literature records via OBIS (Hexacorallians of the World (Fautin 2013), IndOBIS); SeaLifeBase Maldives checklist. Branching and table corals of this kind were among the worst hit by the 1998 and 2016 mass bleaching events in the Maldives.
Sources
- sealifebase.se /summary/Acropora-hyacinthus.html
- marinespecies.org /aphia.php?p=taxdetails&id=207044
- commons.wikimedia.org /wiki/File:Acropora_hyacinthus,_NPS.jpg
Dhivehi name source: No species-level Dhivehi name found in Dhivehi Wikipedia, SeaLifeBase (country: Maldives) or MRS/MMRI invertebrate publications.