Staghorn Coral

Photo: pleahy · © all rights reserved

Staghorn coral thickets dominate the upper pinnacles at Solomon Sea Gardens, their branching architecture creating the densest fish nursery habitat on the reef and providing shelter for an extraordinary diversity of juvenile fish and invertebrates in the spaces between branches. As one of the fastest-growing corals in the Indo-Pacific, staghorn colonies are critical reef-builders whose three-dimensional structure reduces wave energy and provides the settlement substrate that allows the next generation of reef corals to recruit.