Endangered
Montipora capitata
Montipora capitata
Montipora capitata is a stony coral in the family Acroporidae.
Appearance
The colour is normally pale brown with white verrucae.
Range and habitat
Montipora capitata is found in the tropical north and central Pacific Ocean at depths down to 20 metres (70 ft). It is a reef building species and is found in tropical parts of the Pacific Ocean.
Pins are Wikidata “endemic to” fields. Orange dots, when present, are GBIF occurrence tiles — survey bias included.
Diet
The crown-of-thorns starfish (Acanthaster planci), seems to preferentially feed on corals of the genus Montipora.
In crisis
Like other reef corals, Montipora capitata is threatened by habitat destruction. Other threats are posed by El Nino events, ocean acidification that tends to dissolve the coral skeleton, trawling and other fishing activities, pollution and sedimentation.
CITES lists this taxon on Appendix II. Confirm the current appendix on the CITES checklist.
Branching acroporids are among the first corals to bleach in a marine heatwave and among the first to smash in a storm or under an anchor.
Montipora capitata is 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 Montipora capitata, Wikidata item Q3322800. 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.
