86 
THE CORAL TRIANGLE: HEARST BIODIVERSITY EXPEDITION 
Williams, one whole specimen wet-preserved 95% ethanol; CASIZ 179462, Philippines, Luzon, 
Batangas Province, Maricaban Island, Sepoc Point, 25 May 2011, 18m depth, coll. Joseph Comen- 
dador, one whole colony wet-preserved 95% ethanol. 
Remarks. — Many species of Pteroeides have been described from Indonesia and the Philip¬ 
pines, but unfortunately, many of these are poorly described or insufficiently illustrated, and type 
material for comparative study is often not obtainable. 
The genus is in need of revision before most Indo-Pacific species can be confidently identified 
or the number of valid species in the genus can be ascertained. More original descriptions of 
species oiPteroeides appear in the literature than any other pennatulacean genus. 
Species.— Thirty-one species are currently recognized (Appeltans et al. 2013). 
Distribution.— The genus is circumglobal: Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic Oceans, as well as 
the Mediterranean Sea. 
References. — Fabricius et al. (2007:91); Gosliner, Behrens, and Williams (1996:59-60); 
Williams (1995:130); Williams (2011:3, 6, 9). 
Discussion and Conclusion 
Somewhat differing species compositions, as encountered in various island groups of the 
Philippine Archipelago, are evident in a complex geographic region of over 7000 islands spread 
over approximately 15° of north latitude in the Indo-Pacific tropics. The additive effects of these 
differing faunal components result in a complex mosaic of overall high diversity in the archipela¬ 
go, and no doubt is a major contributing factor to the recognition of the region as having certainly 
one of the highest levels of marine biodiversity in the world. 
In the late 1980s and 1990s, the concept of the Coral Triangle of high marine biodiversity came 
about through the efforts of various scientists working largely independently in Papua New Guinea, 
Indonesia, and the Philippines. The three points of the Coral Triangle came to be defined as the 
northern tip of the Philippines, the eastern end of New Guinea, and Indonesia between the islands 
of Java and Bali. Subsequently,, a team of scientists and conseiwationists declared the Philippine 
Archipelago to be the center of global marine biodiversity and the Verde Island Passage as the cen¬ 
ter of the center (or epicenter of marine biodiversity) based on the diversity of shorefishes (Carpen¬ 
ter and Springer 2005). In addition, the Bismai'ck Archipelago and the Solomon Islands were later 
included as extensions of the Coral Triangle based on zooxanthellate coral diversity (Veron et al. 
2009). 
Accumulative field observations since the early 1990s by invertebrate zoologists from the Cal¬ 
ifornia Academy of Sciences, have revealed that the Verde Island Passage shows remarkably high 
levels of diversity in both opisthobranch mollusks and octocoral cnidarians (T. M. Gosliner and 
G C. Williams, pers. comm.). 
Acknowledgments 
We express our gratitude to Margaret and William Hearst for their generous gift to the Califor¬ 
nia Academy of Sciences that made the Hearst Biodiversity Expedition to the Philippines a reality. 
We thank Terry Gosliner, Bob Van Syoc, Joseph Comendador, Peri Paleracio, and Alexis Principe 
for field observations and collection of specimens, and Christina Piotrow ski, Elizabeth Kools, 
Dana Garrison, and Kelly Markello for curation of collected material. 
