Acropora secale
Studer, 1878
Description: Colonies are mostly caespitose bushes. Branches are tapered and up to 25 millimetres thick. Axial corallites are small and tubular. Radial corallites are of mixed sizes, sometimes alternating in vertical rows and are large and conspicuous, increasing in length down the sides of branches.
Color: Colonies are colourful, usually mixtures of cream, blue, purple, brown and yellow, commonly with purple branch ends and cream corallites, a colour shared with A. valida and A. nana.
Habitat: Shallow reef environments especially upper reef slopes and outer reef flats.
Abundance: Common in the Pacific, uncommon in the Indian Ocean.
Similar Species: Acropora valida, which has smaller radial corallites which do not increase in size down the sides of branches, and A. gemmifera, which is digitate and has cup-shaped rather than tubular distal radial corallites. See also A. cophodactyla and A. appressa, which have conspicuous axial corallites.
Source reference: Veron (2000). Taxonomic references: Veron and Wallace (1984), Wallace (1999). Identification guides: Veron (1986), Nishihira and Veron (1995).
On an upper reef slope. Fiji Photograph: Neville Coleman
Showing sturdy branches. Fitzroy Reef, Coral Sea Photograph: Charlie Veron
Corallite detail. Great Barrier Reef, Australia Photograph: Neville Coleman
Corallite detail. Great Barrier Reef, Australia Photograph: Neville Coleman
Skeletal detail. Axial and radial corallites.