Critically Endangered
Meandrina meandrites
Meandrina meandrites
Meandrina meandrites is a stony coral in the family Meandrinidae (order Scleractinia), recorded as Critically Endangered.
The stony coral
The corallites, the calcareous cups secreted by the polyps, are 1 to 2 cm (0.4 to 0.8 in) wide.
Range and habitat
Meandrina meandrites is found in Bermuda, Florida, the Caribbean Sea, the Gulf of Mexico and the Bahamas. It mainly occurs on the seaward sides of reefs but also occurs on the back slopes. Its favoured depth range is 8 to 30 metres (26 to 98 ft) but it occurs at any depth less than 80 metres (260 ft).
Pins are Wikidata “endemic to” fields. Orange dots, when present, are GBIF occurrence tiles — survey bias included.
Habits
A stony-coral colony is fixed. Growth, bleaching, and death happen in place. Collection and gear damage remove the skeleton as well as the tissue.
The colony stays where it settled. Water quality, light, and a stable bottom decide whether tissue remains on the skeleton.
In crisis
Warm-water bleaching, sedimentation, destructive fishing, and the curio trade sit behind many stony-coral badges. That is the group backdrop — confirm the official criteria for this name on the Red List.
Meandrina meandrites is Critically Endangered on this catalog because that is the IUCN category stored on Wikidata. Confirm the official criteria and any later count on iucnredlist.org.
Sources
Written for this catalog from the English Wikipedia article on Meandrina meandrites, Wikidata item Q3322586. Family and order context is original field-guide writing about the group, not a copied assessment of this one species. Wikipedia text is CC BY-SA. Not an IUCN assessment. Counts, when quoted, can change — confirm them on the recovery programme and on iucnredlist.org.
