At a glance
Data from the scientific sources listed at the bottom.
Depth in the wild
2–40 m
Conservation
IUCN Red List: not evaluated. CITES: Appendix II. The Red List assesses individual species, not the genus: B. wellsi is listed as LC, with an assessment dated 27 October 2023. 3 Appendix II covers all Scleractinia since 18 January 1990, excluding fossils; in the European Union the genus is in Annex B. 2 Its colourful mantle makes it increasingly collected for the trade. 4
The coral
Growth form: colonies with separate corallites in B. merleti and B. wellsi, close together in B. loyae and B. omanensis, encrusting in B. vivida; corallite diameter from 4-8 mm up to 9-13 mm, larger in B. vivida 4
Zooxanthellae: yes
Where it lives
B. merleti and B. wellsi are recorded in the Red Sea, the Indian Ocean and the western Pacific; B. omanensis in the Gulf of Aden, the Arabian Sea and Mauritius; B. vivida from New Caledonia and Australia to Japan and peninsular Malaysia. 4 Species+ lists B. merleti, among others, in Egypt, Israel, Kenya, Madagascar, the Maldives, Indonesia, the Philippines, Japan, Australia, New Caledonia and Fiji. 2
How to recognise it
Tap a number on the photo: the key explains what to look for.
Life in the wild
Where it is found
The species live in different environments. B. merleti and B. omanensis live in sheltered areas, and B. merleti copes well with low light and turbid water; B. vivida lives on hard bottoms often covered with sediment. 4 B. wellsi, on the other hand, lives in areas exposed to waves and in New Caledonia has been seen only below 15 m, on well-lit outer slopes. 4 The global estimate for B. wellsi is 2-40 m 5; B. merleti was sampled at 50 m at Eilat, in the Red Sea. 8
What it eats
It has zooxanthellae: this is reported, among others, for B. wellsi. 5 I found no open-access studies on what it eats in the wild.
In the aquarium
From the experience of the BallingMania community.
It belongs to the family Mussidae and can be found in New Caledonia, Australia, the Caribbean Sea, Elizabeth Island, Middleton Reef, the Houtman Islands and Madagascar.
Its calices grow as single corallites (easy to frag), which then end in a common centre, creating a kind of tree.
Like all LPS corals, B. wellsi too feeds through its zooxanthellae by day, and at night through its tentacles, catching food particles, plankton and organic matter in the water column; so it is advisable to keep it in a mature aquarium, with moderate current, placed on the lower rocks.
Because of its shape it is a coral that often hosts organisms such as sponges, molluscs and sessile invertebrates among its "branches".
In the wild it reproduces more easily by producing eggs and sperm at the same time, which turn into planulae that will settle and form the first calice.
A slow-growing coral that tolerates the proximity of the same species, but not other corals.
Photo and description by Loredana Prologo
Did you know?
Sources
- Hoeksema B.W., Cairns S., Samimi-Namin K. (2026). Blastomussa Wells, 1968. World Register of Marine Species.
- UNEP-WCMC (2026). Blastomussa merleti, distribution and CITES listing. Species+.
- SeaLifeBase (2026). Blastomussa wellsi, stato IUCN. SeaLifeBase.
- Benzoni F., Arrigoni R., Waheed Z., Stefani F., Hoeksema B.W. (2014). Phylogenetic relationships and revision of the genus Blastomussa (Cnidaria: Anthozoa: Scleractinia) with description of a new species. Raffles Bulletin of Zoology.
- Coral Trait Database (2026). Blastomussa wellsi in the Coral Trait Database: depth from Carpenter et al. (2008), zooxanthellae from Cairns (1999), reproduction from Babcock et al. (1994). Coral Trait Database.
- Baird A.H. et al. (2021). An Indo-Pacific coral spawning database. Scientific Data.
- Arrigoni R., Stefani F., Pichon M., Galli P., Benzoni F. (2012). Molecular phylogeny of the Robust clade (Faviidae, Mussidae, Merulinidae, and Pectiniidae): an Indian Ocean perspective. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution.
- Eyal G. et al. (2015). Spectral Diversity and Regulation of Coral Fluorescence in a Mesophotic Reef Habitat in the Red Sea. PLoS ONE.
- Kramer N., Eyal G., Tamir R., Loya Y. (2019). Upper mesophotic depths in the coral reefs of Eilat, Red Sea, offer suitable refuge grounds for coral settlement. Scientific Reports.
- Zhang Q. et al. (2026). Active host control of the internal O2 microenvironment in reef-building corals. iScience.
Sources checked on 5 November 2026. Community texts and ratings are kept separate from the scientific data.
