An annotated and illustrated checklist of species of the coral genus Acropora (Cnidaria: Scleractinia) from Vamizi Island, Mozambique
Author
Sola, Erwan
Author
Silva, Isabel Marques da
Author
Glassom, David
text
African Invertebrates
2015
2015-12-31
56
3
807
807
http://www.bioone.org/doi/10.5733/afin.056.0320
journal article
10.5733/afin.056.0320
2305-2562
7914925
Acropora
abrotanoides
(Lamarck, 1816)
Fig. 2
Colony growth form
: Strongly irregular with thick prostrate to upright branches and an encrusting base; basal branches are highly fused and upward-projecting ones may be pointed or rounded, bearing many axial corallites.
Axial corallites
: Outer diameter
1.6–2.3 mm
; inner diameter
0.7–1.1 mm
; not well differentiated from radial corallites at the tip of branches; long and tubular; primary septa extend deep within calyx; secondary septa absent.
Radial corallites
: Mixture of sizes and shapes gives colony spiny appearance; long and tubular with clearly dimidiate opening; shorter ones are completely dimidiate; interspersed are sub-immersed corallites with round opening; long tubular incipient axial corallites with round opening are frequent; septal development is reduced to lines of spines.
Coenosteum
: Costate on radial corallites and reticulate with scattered spinules in intercorallite areas.
Remarks: This species has similarities with
A. robusta
(Dana, 1846), but is distinguished mainly by the profusion of incipient axial corallites distally on branches and for having more elongate radial corallites.