Catch bowl coral
Isopora palifera
Valid name (WoRMS, AphiaID 730686, checked 2026-10-31).
- English
- Catch bowl coral
- Scientific
- Isopora palifera
- Dhivehi
- No recorded Dhivehi name
- Group
- Hard corals
- Depth and habitat
- Reef-associated, recorded from 2 to 20 m
- IUCN status
- EN · EndangeredEndangered (EN), assessed 2023CITES Appendix II
Description
A coral related to Acropora that forms encrusting bases with thick, flattened columns or ridges. Unlike Acropora, it has no single large cup at the tip of each branch. Colonies are usually brown, cream or greenish and grow on reef edges and upper slopes exposed to waves.
In the Maldives
Recorded from the Maldives: museum specimens (n=10, QM); iNaturalist research-grade observations in the Maldives (n=7); 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/Isopora-palifera.html
- marinespecies.org /aphia.php?p=taxdetails&id=730686
- commons.wikimedia.org /wiki/File:Acropora_palifera_Maldives.jpg
Dhivehi name source: No species-level Dhivehi name found in Dhivehi Wikipedia, SeaLifeBase (country: Maldives) or MRS/MMRI invertebrate publications.