Hermatypic Coral Fauna of Subtropical Southeast Africa: A Checklist

The South African hermatypic coral fauna consists of 96 species in 42 scleractinian genera, one stoloniferous octocoral genus (Tubipora), and one hermatypic hydrocoral genus (Millepora). There are more species in southern Mozambique, with 151 species in 49 scleractinian genera, one stoloniferous octocoral (Tubipora musica L.), and one hydrocoral (Millepora exaesa [Forskal)). The eastern African coral faunas of Somalia, Kenya, Tanzania, Mozambique, and South Africa are compared and Southeast Africa distinguished as a biogeographic subregion, with six endemic species. Patterns of attenuation and species composition are described and compared with those on the eastern boundaries of the Indo-Pacific in the Pacific Ocean. MATERIALS AND METHODS Mason 1990) or taxonomically inaccurate (Boshoff 1981) lists of the corals of the highlatitude reefs of Southeast Africa. In this paper, a checklist of the hermatypic coral fauna of subtropical Southeast Africa, which includes the southernmost corals of Maputaland and northern Natal Province, is evaluated and compared with a checklist of the coral faunas of southern Mozambique (Boshoff 1981). Faunal composition and patterns of distribution of the southern African corals are compared with those of corals of the Pacific Ocean. The hermatypic coral collections in the South African Museum in Cape Town, the Oceanographic Research Institute in Durban, and the Zoological Museum of Tel Aviv University, Israel, were consulted and revised. New material, collected to complement existing collections and now deposited in the above institutions, was obtained from three reef complexes of Maputaland, northern Natal (Figure 1); on Aliwal Shoal, central Natal; and from several intertidal locations along the Natal shoreline (Island Rock, Jesser Point, St. Lucia, Chaka's Rock, Umdloti, Durban, Pennington, Port Shepstone). The corals in the collection on which Boshoff (1981) based his list were examined, but it 404 KNOWLEDGE OF CORAL BIODIVERSITY in the Indo-Pacific has increased greatly during the past decade (Sheppard 1987, Rosen 1988, Sheppard and Sheppard 1991 , Wallace and Pandolfi 1991, 1993, Veron 1993), but gaps in the record remain. In particular, tropical and subtropical subsaharan Africa, with a rich and diverse coral fauna (Hamilton and Brakel 1984, Sheppard 1987, Lemmens 1993, Carbone et al. 1994) is inadequately documented, especially southern Africa (Boshoff 1981, Ramsey and Mason 1990). High-latitude reefs in Japan (Veron 1992), the northern Red Sea (Sheppard and Sheppard 1991), and Australia (Veron 1974, Veron and Done 1979, Veron and Marsh 1988) have been shown to be surprisingly rich in coral species, but currently there are only preliminary (Wijsman-Best et al. 1980, Ramsey and 1 This research was sponsored in part by the South African Foundation for Research Development, the Department of National Education, and the Endangered Wildlife Trust while the author worked at the University of Cape Town and by the South African Association for Marine Biological Research while he worked at the Oceanographic Research Institute in Durban. This article is in part a result of Natal Parks Board/University of Cape Town Research Project SM 1/14 to B. Riegl. Manuscript accepted 26 January 1996. 2 Zoology Department, University of Cape Town, Rondebosch, South Africa. Current address: Institut fUr Paliiontologie, Geozentrum Althanstrasse 14, 1090 Wien, Austria. -8 Tropic of ---------Capricorn / .i . f"._1 '--',,/ \ I ,.,.). -. ~ . ( MOZAM: ·------L---------/·. ,. :. ---~-BIQUE . : . , ! (" \--" L /. ; I . :: . ". , Pta. Zavora i',\ I-'" / J . " Xai Xai I i? ,/ '-' l~·J ::' -Inhaca Island 4--. i 0' j ( ~~ i ~:>/. Northern ~>_. _. _/ SOUTH ,,/NATAL. Central ~ Reef Complexes