Montipora

Montipora is a genus of stony corals, family Acroporidae, order Scleractinia, comprising roughly eighty five described species and ranking as the second most species-rich coral genus after the related genus Acropora. Colonies occur across the Red Sea, the western Indian Ocean and the southern Pacific Ocean reef and lagoon environments, and are entirely absent from the Atlantic. The genus shows remarkable morphological diversity, with submassive, laminar, foliaceous, encrusting and branching growth forms often combined within a single colony, and coloration spanning orange, brown, pink, green, blue, purple, yellow, grey and tan. Montipora corals carry the smallest corallites of any coral family, have porous coenosteum and corallite walls, and lack columellae; their polyps typically stay retracted during daylight. They are hermaphroditic broadcast spawners that reproduce in spring, and their eggs already contain the zooxanthellae algae that will support them, passed down directly from the parent colony rather than acquired later from the environment.