''Anacropora matthai'' is a species of briar coral in the family

Acroporidae Acroporidae is a family of small polyped stony corals in the phylum Cnidaria. The name is derived from the Greek ''"akron"'' meaning "summit" and refers to the presence of a corallite at the tip of each branch of coral. They are commonly known ...

. This species is found in the

Central Indo-Pacific The Central Indo-Pacific is a biogeographic region of Earth's seas, comprising the tropical waters of the western Pacific Ocean, the eastern Indian Ocean, and the connecting seas. The Central Indo-Pacific is a part of the larger Indo-Pacific, w ...

in waters off Solomons,

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

East China Sea The East China Sea is an arm of the Western Pacific Ocean, located directly offshore from East China. It covers an area of roughly . The sea’s northern extension between mainland China and the Korean Peninsula is the Yellow Sea, separated b ...

, Eastern Australia,

Fiji Fiji ( , ,; fj, Viti, ; Fiji Hindi: फ़िजी, ''Fijī''), officially the Republic of Fiji, is an island country in Melanesia, part of Oceania in the South Pacific Ocean. It lies about north-northeast of New Zealand. Fiji consists ...

Palau Palau,, officially the Republic of Palau and historically ''Belau'', ''Palaos'' or ''Pelew'', is an island country and microstate in the western Pacific. The nation has approximately 340 islands and connects the western chain of the Caro ...

, and

Pohnpei Pohnpei "upon (''pohn'') a stone altar (''pei'')" (formerly known as Ponape or Ascension, Proto-Chuukic-Pohnpeic: ''*Fawo ni pei)'' is an island of the Senyavin Islands which are part of the larger Caroline Islands group. It belongs to Pohnpei ...

in shallow tropical reef environments, in depths of 8 to 20 meters. The species is named after

George Matthai George Matthai (13 November 1887 – 22 June 1947) was an Indian zoologist who specialized in marine biology, contributing to the systematics of Madreporarian (now Scleractinia) corals. He was a professor of zoology at the Panjab University in ...

Description

The branches of ''A. matthai'' are 5

millimetre 330px, Different lengths as in respect to the electromagnetic spectrum, measured by the metre and its derived scales. The microwave is between 1 meter to 1 millimeter. The millimetre (American and British English spelling differences#-re, -er, ...

s thick, and are straight, with

brown Brown is a color. It can be considered a composite color, but it is mainly a darker shade of orange. In the CMYK color model used in printing or painting, brown is usually made by combining the colors orange and black. In the RGB color model used ...

and pale brown coloring.

Conservation

The range of ''A. matthai'' occurs in one

protected marine area Marine protected areas (MPA) are protected areas of seas, oceans, estuaries or in the US, the Great Lakes. These marine areas can come in many forms ranging from wildlife refuges to research facilities. MPAs restrict human activity for a conserv ...

, but its population is still in decline, so it has been listed as vulnerable by the

IUCN Red List The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species, also known as the IUCN Red List or Red Data Book, founded in 1964, is the world's most comprehensive inventory of the global conservation status of biol ...

. Its threats include residential and commercial development, shipping lanes, aquatic resources being harvested,

invasive species An invasive species otherwise known as an alien is an introduced organism that becomes overpopulated and harms its new environment. Although most introduced species are neutral or beneficial with respect to other species, invasive species ad ...

disease A disease is a particular abnormal condition that negatively affects the structure or function of all or part of an organism, and that is not immediately due to any external injury. Diseases are often known to be medical conditions that a ...

pollution Pollution is the introduction of contaminants into the natural environment that cause adverse change. Pollution can take the form of any substance (solid, liquid, or gas) or energy (such as radioactivity, heat, sound, or light). Pollutants, the ...

, and

climate change In common usage, climate change describes global warming—the ongoing increase in global average temperature—and its effects on Earth's climate system. Climate change in a broader sense also includes previous long-term changes to E ...

References

Animals described in 1973 Fauna of Japan Fauna of Oceania Cnidarians of the Pacific Ocean Cnidarians of the Indian Ocean Acroporidae {{scleractinia-stub