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I. Indroduction
I . Research work on reef corals and coral reefs in the Red Sea
The first to mention corals of the Red Sea was Thomas SHAW , who travelled through Tunisis,Algeria,
Egypt, Syria and the Sinai Peninsula, and who in his "Travels or observations relating to several parts of
Barbary and the Levant" described 24 corals of Et Tur (1738, German edition 1765). From these one
can recognize P1atygyra, Favia, Goniastrea, Acropora, Stylophora and Tubipora, but his Latin descriptions
are not sufficient for an identification at a species level. A fragment of Fungia agariciformis is figured in
BRUCKMAN 's "Lapides fungiformes maris rubri" (J 748).
But the real research work on Red Sea corals started with Peter FORSKAL. He was a member of a
Danish expedition called the "Arabiske Reise" under Carsten NIEBUHR and collected amongst other
things corals near Suez, Djiddah, Al Luhayyah and Al Mukha in 1762/63. In 1763 he died of Malaria at
Yarim in Yemen. His collections were taken to Copenhagen, and his results" Descriptiones Animalium ... "
were posthumously published by C. NIEBUHR in 1775 . FORSKAL described 26 coral species, 14 of which
are sti ll at the Zoological Museum of the University in Copenhagen. Few of these corals were figured 1776
in FORSKAL'S " leones Rerum aturalium . .. ".
One of the participants of the Egypt expedition of the French army under APOLEON I in 1789- 1801
was Jules'Cesar SAVIGNY who summarized his observations in his " Description de I'Egypte" and included
illustrations of some corals on the " planches d'hisroire naturelle" in 1805- 1812. The explanatory notes
relating to the plates were written by Victor AUDOU IN ( 1826, 2nd ed. 1828).
Among the invertebrates of the Red Sea which Eduard RUEPPELL brought home from his first travel
in Northern Africa (1822- 1827) were three actinias of Et Tur from the Gulf of Suez which he described
in 1828 together with F. S. LEUCKART, and some corals of the genus Fungia , published by LEUCKART
in 1841. The other corals, which RUEPPELL had collected have never been treated.
In 1820- 1826 Christian Gottfried EHRENBERG and Friedrich Wilhelm HEMPRICH travelled in the
countries bordering the Red Sea on behalf of t he Berlin Academy of Sciences. On this occasion they
collected 376 corals of 62 species near Suez, Et Tur and in the Gulf of Aqaba in 1823 . HEMPR ICH died
at Massawa in 1825 . EHRENBERG published a systematic description of the corals in 1834. In 1954
STRESEMANN reported on the two friends' travel on Ihe basis of letters.
Although Charles DARW IN himself did not tour the Red Sea he nevertheless described its reefs in his
book "The structure and distribution of coral reefs" (J 842). In this book he relies mainly on EHRENBERG 's
report on coral reefs ( 1834a) and on personal information given by Captain MORESBY who participated
in a survey of the Red Sea.
A number of coral species of the Red Sea , including also those collected by the Frenchman BOTTA in
the first half of the 19th century, are described in the works of Henry MILNE EDWARDS and Jules HAIME,
especially in the three volumes of " Hisroi re Naturelle des Coralliaires" (1857 and 1860), published shortly
after the death of HAIME (1856).
One should also mention the " Reise von Cairo nach Tor" by Eugen RANSONNET-VILLEZ. His report
(1863) shows for the first time coloured illustrations of the underwater scenery of the coral banks there.
His coral collection is located in Vienna.
An extremely valuable contribution towards expanding the knowledge of Red Sea corals was made
by Carl Benjamin KLUNZINGER . He worked as a medical doctor at AJ-Qusayr (Koseir) in Egypt on the
Red Sea from 1864 to 1869 and again from 1872 to 1874. In 1872 he described a "Zoologische Excursion"
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Cl 1983 E. Schweizerbart 'sche Vc:rlagsb uchhandlung, D-7000 Stuttgart 1