Slide 2 of 10
The concept of identifying corals seems simple, but the job was another matter. Corals are identified in different ways. The bulk of the work was done through comparing the sample coral to a huge book of coral species. The book that Fernando was using, referred to as “The Bible” by coral experts, was Corals of Australia and the Indo-Pacific, by J. E. N. Veron. The book’s enormous size reflected how many different coral species exist. A quick look at the coral usually was enough to deduce what family the coral skeleton belonged to.
Looking Through the Coral Bible