There are 1,314 species of corals in the world, of these 656 are zooxanthellate (Cairns et al. 1999). In 2000, Veron raised the total number of zooxanthellate coral species to 794 - 101 of which were new to science (see New Species Described in Corals of the World, AIMS Monograph 11).
In 2004, Licuanan and Capili reported a total of 468 species of Scleractinians from the Philippines. This current work, integrating publications from 1959 up to the present, raised the total number of Scleractinian coral species to 486. Four are new records for the country (Favites bestae, Fungia taiwanensis, Montipora taiwanensis and Acropora abrotanoides). A new species of coral was also described from the Spratlys (Licuanan and Aliño, in press, Leptoseris kalayaanensis). It is alarming to note however, that six of the original 42 species described by Francisco Nemenzo from the country have not been observed by other researchers since their discovery.
This website contains coral species list for the Philippines and selected areas in the country. If you have species lists for areas in the Philippines and would like to post it here, please contact the administrator (
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Click here to view the list of Philippine corals.
For corals recorded in Bolinao, Pangasinan, click here.
