A large colony of Pacific Elkhorn coral towers over surrounding corals on a living reef. This coral was recently reported as possibly the "world's rarest coral" and possibly an undescribed species. It has long been well known to divers at Kwajalein, where it is a common coral on many lagoon reefs and pinnacles. It is so common, no one here realized it was anything special. It is likely to be common throughout the southern Marshalls, at least. Several of the next few shots show additional colonies.
19 September 2010