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Acropora florida

A hard coral of the genus Acropora, described from a specimen from Fiji and found from East Africa to the central Pacific. 1 2 It forms thick branches, both upright and horizontal, covered with short branchlets like small knobs. 1 2 It is often greenish, but can also be pinkish brown. 1

AcroporidaeSPSIUCN: EndangeredCITES II
Acropora florida

At a glance

Data from the scientific sources listed at the bottom.

Depth in the wild

5–30 m

0 m6 m12 m18 m24 m30 m

Conservation

NEDDLCNTVUENCREWEX

IUCN Red List: endangered (2023). CITES: Appendix II. The listed criterion is A3ce. 1 The CITES listing currently in force dates back to 18 January 1990; in the European Union it is in Annex B. 6

The coral

Group: SPS

Growth form: hispidose ('bottlebrush'), with thick upright and horizontal branches, sometimes on a broad encrusting base

Zooxanthellae: yes

Where it lives

Red SeaWestern Indian OceanEastern Indian OceanCentral Indo-PacificWestern PacificCentral PacificEastern PacificWestern AtlanticEastern AtlanticMediterranean

The Queensland reference collection holds specimens from Kenya, South Africa, Mayotte, Réunion, Mauritius, Chagos and Sri Lanka, then from Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Australia, the South China Sea, Japan, the Philippines, Palau, Papua New Guinea and Micronesia, as far as the Solomon Islands, New Caledonia, the Marshall Islands, Fiji and the Cook Islands. 2 A study on ranges gives limits of about 26° E and 176° W, between 39° N and 35° S. 7 11

How to recognise it

Tap a number on the photo: the key explains what to look for.

123
  1. 1Thick branches 5-10 mm in diameter in the branches measured in the study 2
  2. 2Knob-like branchlets small and short, they cover the branches 1
  3. 3Greenish colour common, but not the only colour 1

Life in the wild

Where it is found

The usual range of 5-30 m comes from a 2008 dataset. 4 7 On outer reef buttresses it has been recorded between 1 and 16 m. 5 7 On the Great Barrier Reef and in the Coral Sea it has been found down to 40 m, but below 30 m it appears only rarely: the study considers it marginal in deep water. 3

What it eats

It hosts symbiotic algae (zooxanthellae). 7 At Rib Reef, Feather Reef and Zamami Island symbionts of clade C were found, including type C3. 7 10

Reproduction

It releases eggs and sperm into the sea. 8 In Nha Trang Bay, in Vietnam, the spawning period fell in March-April, between the full moon and the crescent moon; egg maturation begins before the full moon and ends after it. 8 A study on the Maldives cites it, drawing on a 2016 paper, as an example of a species that can spawn in two seasons in the same year. 9

In the aquarium

From the experience of the BallingMania community.

Community rating
Position in the tank
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Water flow
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Light intensity
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Original sheet

An Acropora with tubular or non-tubular growth; the growth form depends on the geographical position where the coral is found.

It populates the reefs of the seas of Australia and Indonesia, but there are also specimens in southern Africa and southern India. The colours range from light brown with orange tips, but it can also be a bright green (like the specimen in the photo). Like all Acropora it prefers a strong, continuous current (preferably not direct) and a high position in the aquarium (strong lighting).

photo by: Alessandro Tomaselli

Did you know?

The name is formally a duplicate: Dana's Madrepora florida (1846) had already been used by Müller in 1775, and no one has yet proposed a replacement name. WoRMS continues to use A. florida. 1
Various species described in the past have been merged under this name, including A. gravida, A. polymorpha and A. affinis. 1 2

Sources

  1. Hoeksema B.W., Cairns S., Samimi-Namin K. (2026). Acropora florida (Dana, 1846). World List of Scleractinia, via WoRMS.
  2. Wallace C.C., Done B.J., Muir P.R. (2012). Revision and catalogue of worldwide staghorn corals Acropora and Isopora (Scleractinia: Acroporidae) in the Museum of Tropical Queensland. Memoirs of the Queensland Museum - Nature.
  3. Muir P., Wallace C., Bridge T.C.L., Bongaerts P. (2015). Diverse Staghorn Coral Fauna on the Mesophotic Reefs of North-East Australia. PLOS ONE.
  4. Carpenter K.E., Abrar M., Aeby G. et al. (2008). One-Third of Reef-Building Corals Face Elevated Extinction Risk from Climate Change and Local Impacts. Science, reference in the Coral Trait Database.
  5. Wallace C., Dale M.B. (1978). An Information Analysis Approach to Zonation Patterns of the Coral Genus Acropora on Outer Reef Buttresses. Atoll Research Bulletin, reference in the Coral Trait Database.
  6. UNEP-WCMC (2026). Acropora florida, CITES listings and distribution. Species+.
  7. Madin J. et al. (eds.) (2026). Acropora florida. Coral Trait Database.
  8. Vo Si Tuan, Ho Son Lam, Dang Tran Tu Tram et al. (2022). A study on the spawning season of 3 Acropora species in Nha Trang bay, Southern waters of Vietnam. Vietnam Journal of Marine Science and Technology.
  9. Monfared M.A.A., Sheridan K., Dixon S.P., Gledhill M., Le Berre T. (2023). Coral spawning patterns of Acropora across two Maldivian reef ecosystems. PeerJ.
  10. LaJeunesse T.C., Bhagooli R., Hidaka M. et al. (2004). Closely related Symbiodinium spp. differ in relative dominance in coral reef host communities across environmental, latitudinal and biogeographic gradients. Marine Ecology Progress Series, reference in the Coral Trait Database.
  11. Hughes T.P., Connolly S.R., Keith S.A. (2013). Geographic ranges of reef corals (Cnidaria: Anthozoa: Scleractinia) in the Indo-Pacific. Ecology, reference in the Coral Trait Database.

Sources checked on 5 November 2026. Community texts and ratings are kept separate from the scientific data.

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