Two popular corals classified “extreme” in Queensland Fishery risk assessment 

Homophyllia cf. australis and Micromussa lordhowensis have been given an extreme risk rating by the Queensland Coral Fishery Ecological Risk Assessment, 2022. In ongoing reforms to the management of the fishery, a harvest strategy has now been implemented based on…

Revised Queensland Coral Exports Approved Until 2024

The Australian government has confirmed that hard coral export from the Great Barrier Reef can continue for another three years, albeit with several caveats. In a statement by the Wildlife Trade Regulation Section, a new approval for the Wildlife Trade…

First Captive Spawning of Homophyllia australis, the Australian ‘Scolie’

For the past ten years my work has been focused on successfully inducing coral spawning events in aquariums, but Homophyllia australis is a species that remained elusive to me despite four years of effort and commitment. The challenge of working…

Update to Australian Coral Export Restrictions from Queensland

Last week we reported about some what was feared would be an interruption of live coral exports, from Queensland Australia specifically. The information at the time was that the harvest and export of live corals from Queensland’s reefs would be…

Big Changes Coming to Australian Coral Exports

Australia has become one of the world’s biggest suppliers of live corals and this aquarium source became crucial to filling the gap when exports of all Indonesian corals were suspended. The availability of high quality, exotic and endemic corals from…

BYOGuides’ Coral Finder Rolls Into its 2021 Edition

Coral identification could be one of the biggest challenges to new aquarists but even veterans struggle to properly identify coral to the proper genus and species. Russell Kelley’s Coral Finder has been one of the best tools to identify a…

The Purple of These Indo Lords are Different from Australian Strains

Long before Australia started exporting an infinite variety of Micromussa lordhowensis in a myriad of colors to blow our collective minds, the rest of the world had to make due with ‘Acan’ lords from Indonesia. Indonesian Lord corals have a…

Machadoporites, Poritipora, Calathiscus – What IS This Coral?

There’s a curious little coral that we’ve been on the lookout for ever since first learning about it in the 2001 release of Charles Veron’s seminal Corals of the World. You most likely already know about Porites and the closely…

Acanthastrea pachysepta: Your Orange Lobo is most Likely an Acan!

Acanthastrea pachysepta is a reclassification of a coral that has stumped us for well over a decade. Formerly classified as a Lophyllia (which now includes all Symphyllia too), the majority of orange lobos exhibit a different color, pattern, morphology and especially behavior than any…

It’s Still Hard to Believe the Colors of Micro Lord Corals

Recently we came across a series of pictures taken by Ultra Coral Australia. Shots of some of their new collection of Rainbow Micro Lords, aka Micromussa lordhowensis, and we couldn’t resist to share some with you. UCA is starting to…