Scientific name: Porites lobata
Size: From 2.5 to 10 foot
Color: Beige, brown, yellow
Distinguishing feature: Very massive block, looks like a lava flow very porous when you touch it
Where did we see it: Bali and Gili, Zanzibar, Thailand, French polynesia, Mayotte, Maldives, Raja Ampat, Egypt
Scientific name: Porites lobata
Size: From 2.5 to 10 foot
Color: Beige, brown, yellow
Distinguishing feature: Very massive block, looks like a lava flow very porous when you touch it
Where did we see it: Bali and Gili, Zanzibar, Thailand, French polynesia, Mayotte, Maldives, Raja Ampat, Egypt
It's one of the most important corals, especially in the Indian Ocean, Pacific and Red Sea.
It's also a coral that grows very slowly, about 0.4 inch / year, but its body is very solid.
Thanks to the hardness of this body, when it dies, it becomes a substrate on which many organisms come to live.
This makes it one of the bioconstructive corals, which actively participates in the construction of coral reefs.
It's the most common species of Porite genus coral.
Parrotfish create a protective envelope around them when they are sleeping.
So, don't put the light on them during night dive to don't to wake them up and break this envelope.
Mammals have a horizontal tail.
Fishes have a vertical fin.
Some sharks can stay motionless on the sand (white tips reef sharks, nurse sharks, etc.).
These sharks don't have to swim to bring oxygen to their gills like other sharks (grey, hammerheads tc.)
