Notes on Indo-Pacific Scleractinian Corals, Parts 5 and 6 
John W. Wells 1 
Part 5 
A New Species of Alveopora from 
New Caledonia 
A number of specimens of poritid corals sent 
by Dr. R. L. A. Catala (Aquarium de Noumea) 
included several species of Goniopora and 
Alveopora, among them a distinctive new form 
of the latter that is described below. All these 
corals came from the same site — Banc Gail in 
the lagoon of Noumea at a depth of 35-40 
m — and included the following species: 
Alveopora allingi Hoffmeister 
A. mortenseni Crossland 
A. catalai sp. nov. 
Goniopora hernardi Faustino 
G. duofaciata Thiel 
G. sp. cf. G. Great Barrier Reef 6 of Bernard 
G. sp. cf. G. irregularis (Crossland) (= G. 
octoformis Milne Edwards and Haime?) 
The writer expresses his thanks to Dr. Catala 
for this material and for photographs of the 
living colonies. 
Family poritidae 
Genus Alveopora de Blainville 1830 
Alveopora catalai sp. nov. 
Figs. 1-3 
Corallum ramose, composed of gently-tapered 
blunt branches 5-12 mm thick, dividing about 
every 20 mm at approximately 30 degrees. 
Corallites cylindrical to subpolygonal, averaging 
3.5 mm in diameter when fully developed, a few 
reaching 4.5 mm, their vertical axis diverging 
slightly from the axis of the branch. Mature 
calices slightly exsert, oval in outline, and 
slightly separated from each other. Corallite wall 
1 Department of Geological Sciences, Cornell Uni- 
versity, Ithaca, N.Y. 14850. Manuscript received 
March 6, 1967. 
formed by a palisade of 12 trabecular pillars 
linked by stout synapticulae, the projecting tips 
of the pillars forming a prominent crown of 
spines. The 12 septa consist of vertical rows of 
trabecular spines projecting inward from the 
mural pillars. The tapered inner ends of the 
septa divide and fuse deep in the calices to 
form a loose, irregular axial tangle. The vertical 
row of spines of each septum in the inner or 
upper side of a mature calice is commonly 
strengthened by a vertical bar between each 
spine. Dissepiments sparse, represented by a 
few very delicate horizontal partitions deep in 
the calices. On older parts of branches the mural 
trabeculae become greatly thickened, often ob- 
literating the spaces between them. 
The polyps (Fig. 3) are typical of Alveopora 
— 12 blunt tentacles expanding horizontally 
from the margin of the highly extensible column 
wall. 
The arborescent growth form of this species 
alone distinguishes it from the 17 described 
species of Recent Alveopora from the Indo- 
Pacific, all of which are encrusting, submassive 
or gibbous, columnar, or clavate-ramose. None 
has slender branches with relatively large coral- 
lites. The nearest form is A. allingi Hoffmeister 
(1925: 81, pi. 23, fig. 2a, b, c) (25-30 m, 
Samoa; Great Barrier Reef; New Caledonia), 
a subcolumnar form with corallites of about the 
same size with similar development of mural 
and septal structures, but with calices normal to 
the surface of the lobate colonies. 
locality: 35-40 m, Banc Gail, Noumea 
lagoon, New Caledonia. 
REFERENCE 
Hoffmeister, J. E. 1925. Some corals from 
American Samoa and the Fiji Islands. Car- 
negie Inst. Washington, Publ. 343, 89 pp., 
23 pis. 
274 
