A description of the coral Fauna of the cast African coast

The first part of this report is a qualitative descriptive account of the distribution of corals on six selected reefs at Malindi, Kenya and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Some typical coral zonation patterns on various reef types are described, and notable features of the coral structure of East African reefs are defined. It is concluded that of other western Indian Ocean reefs for which data is available, particularly in the Seychelles and the Southern Maldive Islands; a notable feature of East African reefs is the importance of Galaxes clavus as a dominant species. The remainder of the paper is devoted to systematic description of a collection of reef-building corals made in Kenya and Tanzania. The collection is identified to a minimum of 88 species in 34 genera; the systematic descriptions are accompanied by photographic illustrations. The total number of hermatypic coral genera recorded from East Africa is increased to 50. The coral fauna of East Africa is discussed and compared with published data from reefs in the Western Indian Ocean, and faunal differences are shown to be mainly in the relative abundances of some genera and species comprising a basically common fauna.