Millepora fire coral (no English common name)
Millepora latifolia
Valid name (WoRMS, AphiaID 287423, checked 2026-10-31).
Possibly present in the Maldives
- English
- Millepora fire coral (no English common name)
- Scientific
- Millepora latifolia
- Dhivehi
- No recorded Dhivehi name
- IUCN status
- VU · VulnerableVulnerable (VU), assessed 2022CITES Appendix II
- Record in the Maldives
- Possibly present
Description
A fire coral that forms flat, upright plates or broad fronds with a smooth, mustard-yellow to brown surface and paler edges. Its fine stinging polyps give a burning sting when touched. It grows on reef flats and upper slopes. Fire corals are hydrocorals, not true stony corals, and are listed on CITES Appendix II.
In the Maldives
Recorded from the Maldives: museum specimens (n=1, USNM). Only one kind of evidence was found, so it is listed as possibly present. Fire corals are common on shallow Maldivian reefs, but most are identified only to genus; species-level Maldives records are museum specimens.
Sources
- sealifebase.se /summary/Millepora-latifolia.html
- marinespecies.org /aphia.php?p=taxdetails&id=287423
Dhivehi name source: No species-level Dhivehi name found in Dhivehi Wikipedia, SeaLifeBase (country: Maldives) or MRS/MMRI invertebrate publications.