Elkhorn coral formation ofF the Virgin Islands. This is the only stony coral listed among 

 "venomous coelenterates." It is a menace to skin divers off the Florida keys and the West 

 Indies. (T. Parkinson: National Audubon) 



of the smaller coral species are accessible to anyone 

 who wades out in many places along the Florida 

 keys, even as far north as the shores of Elliot Key or 

 on the bars south of Biscayne Key. F. G. Walton 

 Smith's Atlantic Reef Corals will be helpful to any- 

 one visiting the Florida shore, and it has brief sug- 

 gestions on where to see the better-developed reefs 

 of the Bahamas and Cuba. He lists nineteen spe- 

 cies for Bermuda and forty species from Florida 

 waters. Thomas Goreau has in recent years collected 

 forty of the forty-one species recorded for Jamaica, 

 and he reports that the density of growth is often 

 comparable with that on the great Indo-Pacific reefs 

 even though the number of species is far less. The 

 Atlantic reefs are mostly bank reefs built on fiat shal- 

 low platforms. They are farther from shore than true 

 fringing reefs, but the lagoon channel that separates 

 them from the shore is not nearly so deep as in the 



barrier reefs of the South Seas. They are often some 

 distance inward from the edge of the platform, so 

 they do not slope off into very deep water as do 

 atolls and barrier reefs. 



The most densely crowded communities of animal 

 species found anywhere on land or in the sea are 

 those of the great coral reefs of the Indo-Pacific re- 

 gion, from the Red Sea and the east coast of Africa 

 at one extreme to the islands of Hawaii, Tahiti, the 

 Marquesas, etc. at the other. The reefs of the African 

 east coast and of the island of Madagascar are fring- 

 ing reefs, which lie close to shore in shallow water 

 and continue to grow actively only on the wave- 

 beaten seaward side, which slopes steeply downward 

 into deep water. At low tide one can wade out to the 

 partly exposed platform. Such fringing reefs are also 

 well developed at Java, the Solomon Ishmds, and the 

 Carolines, but grow less well at Hawaii and other 



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