The tides and surf tend to be calm at Keawakapu Beach which makes for great snorkeling!
This photo comes from a snorkeling adventure off the coast of Maui's Keawakapu Beach in 2019. Keawakapu beach is great for snorkeling. You quickly find yourself in water that is ten to fifteen feet deep, and there are many different mounds of coral reef dotting the seafloor. The tides and surf tend to be calm, and you can spend a lot of time in the warm waters of the Pacific.
This photo contains a lot of wildlife: a few Christmas tree worms, a red pencil urchin, a banded sea urchin, and a fish lurking in the background. The casual observer might think this reef is just a conflagration of rocks of different colors. What you actually see here is an encrusting coral with the common name of hump coral!
Hump coral is an interesting species of stony coral. It can be found in the Indian Ocean and the Pacific Ocean. From the eastern coasts of Africa, to the western coasts of North and South America, this coral has quite the geographic dispersion. Hump coral is also known as lobe coral, which is more typically used in certain parts of the world. Its scientific name is Porites lobata.
This species of coral is a reef-building, or hermatypic, coral. This means that it will deposit hard calcareous material which forms a skeleton. As the coral deposits more material, the reef continues to grow. This coral like most reef-forming corals has a symbiotic relationship with photosynthetic zooxanthellae, that helps to provide for the corals nutritional needs.
The scientific name for hump coral is Porites lobata.
Hump coral colonies are either male or female!
Hump coral can vary widely in its appearance. In places like in this photo that are exposed to waves and shallow, it often takes on an encrusting shape. In calmer and deeper waters it can form large helmet-shaped mounds. It normally has a greenish, yellow or tan color that is presented because of the zooxanthelle living within its tissues..
Interestingly, hump coral is gonochoristic. This means that the individual colonies are either male or female. It is hard to tell if this photo is of one colony that has separated due to damage, injury, or disease; or if it is multiple colonies that are growing close to one another.
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