[Coral-List] Acropora prolifera

[Judith Lang]

Hi Dennis,
Orbicella is a "middle-aged" Dana species. Nancy Budd and colleagues published an extensive revision of the Mussidae and former family Faviidae in 2012 on the basis of both molecular and morphological data.
Here's the reference:
 Budd, A.F., H. Fukami, N.D. Smith and N. Knowlton. 2012. Taxonomic classification of the reef coral family Mussidae (Cnidaria: Anthozoa: Scleractinia). Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society 166: 465-529.
Anyone wanting to see all the changes can download the paper at http://www.agrra.org/Mussa.pdf

These changes were incorporated into the spring 2013 version of the AGRRA Coral ID slides, and the Coral Flash slides, which can be downloaded at http://www.agrra.org/method/trainingid.html
Enjoy,
Judy (Lang)
Scientific Coordinator, AGRRA Project


On Sep 10, 2013, at 12:07 PM, Dennis Hubbard <dennis.hubbard at oberlin.edu> wrote:

> This is the first I've heard of the latest species shuffle. Is  *Montastraea
> faveolata* now formally *Orbicella faveolata*? Perhaps I missed the genus
> Orbicella; is this a new genus, and what is the basis for this change
> (other than the obvious "it's genetics"?).
> 
> Dennis
> 
>