【Know Your Coral, One Book Does It All】Taiwan Coral Field Guide (Part 1): Hard Corals

The first comprehensive Taiwan coral field guide, covering 558 species of hard coral across 24 families

Coral is a group of cnidarians that have existed for millions of years — ancient, yet extraordinarily diverse. They include what are commonly known as hard corals, soft coral, gorgonians, precious coral, black coral, and hydrocoral. Coral reefs, formed by communities of various coral species, are the most life-rich environments in the ocean. Often called the "tropical rainforests of the sea," they represent a vast and complex ecosystem.

Of all corals, only the order Scleractinia forms solid calcium carbonate skeletons, making hard corals the primary reef-building corals. This book documents every hard coral species found in Taiwan's surrounding waters, and is the world's first hard coral field guide to include both shallow-water and deep-sea species simultaneously.

Forty years of research by a leading marine biology authority, all in one definitive volume

The primary author of this book is Professor Dai Chang-feng of the Institute of Oceanography at National Taiwan University — Taiwan's foremost authority on coral research. He began diving and exploring Taiwan's waters in 1979, venturing into seas few have ever entered: from Nansha and Dongsha, the southernmost reaches of Taiwan's territorial waters, to Pengjia Islet, Mianhua Islet, and Huaping Islet — the three northernmost islands. Over more than 40 years, he has produced detailed descriptions and classifications of every hard coral species found in Taiwan's seas.

Professor Dai wrote this book as a reference for anyone who loves marine life and wishes to learn more about coral. It represents the complete body of his hard coral research in Taiwan, encompassing 24 families and 558 species collected to date — nearly double the coverage of his earlier work, Scleractinia of Taiwan (12 families, 281 species) — and remains the only fully Chinese-language comprehensive hard coral field guide ever published.

Species ordered according to the latest marine taxonomy system WoRMS, with QR codes linking to hard coral video footage

This book follows WoRMS (World Register of Marine Species), the latest classification system dedicated to marine organisms, using mitochondrial gene sequences to re-establish the taxonomic relationships among hard corals. The extensive variety of hard coral species is presented one by one in the forms most commonly observed in Taiwan's waters, with descriptions of each species' key characteristics. In addition, microscopic photographs of coral skeletons taken in the laboratory reveal rarely seen records of deep-sea coral.

The author also provides an in-depth general introduction covering essential knowledge about hard corals, including a fully updated classification tree, variations in detailed structures, the relationship between shallow-water and deep-sea hard corals, coral symbiotic algae and life cycles, coral reef ecosystems, coral reef communities in Taiwan's waters, observation and documentation methods, taxonomic systems, and more. The book is also accompanied by 36 rare coral documentary videos — featuring spawning, aggregation, symbiosis, coral bleaching, and mortality across different taxonomic groups — offering a complete introduction to these remarkable organisms that bring the ocean to life.

Purchase on Books.com.tw (click here)

Cover image credit: Photo by Daniel Öberg on Unsplash

Further reading:

• Crustose Coralline Algae | Micro-guide to Marine Habitats and Organisms Part 4 ft. Ocean Conservation Administration & Keelung City Government

• Soft Coral | Micro-guide to Marine Habitats and Organisms Part 5 ft. Ocean Conservation Administration & Keelung City Government

• Adorn the Waters of the Penghu with Coral — You Too Can Be a "Coral Florist": A Marine Conservation Coral Restoration Experience

• 3 Things You Should Know About Photographing Coral Spawning

• Slow Down and Embark on an Extraordinary Penghu Coral Restoration Eco-Tour