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Dis t rib uti 0 n : Red Sea; Amirante 1515.; Mascarene 1515.; Chagos Archipelago;Maldives;Andamans;
Thailand; Borneo ; Indonesia ; Philippines ; Palau Isis.; Great Barrier Reef; Marshall Isis.; Hawaii ; Tahiti.
R e m,a r k s : We put, in accordance with DINESE ( 1980), L. tubulifera VAUGHAN to the present
speo.es. 1 he tubulIferous expansions are not of any specific value, they are only growthforms, occurring
also In L. scabra and L. explanata. It IS uncertain, for lack of any description or figure , to which species
L. tubulifera in LOy A & SLOBODKIN (1971) belongs.
HEAD states in his Ph. D. Thesis (1980: 449), that figures 9 and 10, plate 4 , in MATTHAI, 1948, are
incorrectly named L. bawaiiensis. He places this specimen together with seven others he has found at the
reefs off Port Sudan (one is figured o n his plate IV- I and la) in the new genus eraterastrea as new species
C. levis. An account on it is in press.
LeplOseris
frilgi/is
Leptoseris fragilis MILN E EDWARDS & HAI.'.tE, 1849
(Pl ate' 14 , Figs. 1- 6)
1849 . MJ LNE EDWARDS & HAIME. 72 (TypC' locality : R~union) .
1854. ROUSSEA U. 123 , pl. 29/ 1. la- h.
1860. MILNE EDWARDS (& HAlME ). 76.
1948. MATTIMI . 192, pI.4/5.6.
The holotype of this species, 0 .470 in the Paris Museum, is lost. CHEVALIER (in litt.) had it still
at hand when writing his D. Sc. Thesis (1961). Now only four small " paratypes" , also collected by
ROUSSEAU 1841 at Reunion, are present (No. 468) in the collection MILNE EDWARDS in Paris. ALready
DINES E (1980: 186) has supposed that these belong to Coscinaraea, and we agree with her. But we
cannOt agree that she omits L. fragilis. There is a very good picture of this species in ROUSSEAU , 1854,
pI. 29 , fig. I . A specimen of exactly the same appearance was given to us by Prof. FRICKE , who has
collected it with his submersible " Geo" in a depth of 110m off Eilat. Another specimen was found in
a depth of 128 m.
The specimen from FRICKE is a rounded thin plate. In the centre are three corallites on a hillock
with 20, 24 and 28 septa respectively. The columella is a solid oval boss. The sptocostae, about 35 in
10 mm , are equal, mostly straight, sometimes flexuous, and between the corallites and over other raised
areas very contorted. Margins non-dentate. The specimen has a diameter of about 8 cm. FRICKE toLd us,
that all specimens he had seen during his deep-divings had about the same size.
Mater ial :
Gulf of Aqaba : HLM Fri 41 - 1 (Eilat, lighthouse, 110 m) .
Fri 24- 1 (Eilat, Mar. BioI. Lab ., 128 m).
Dis t rib uti 0 n : Red Sea; Reunion; Maldives.
R e m a rk s: We feel that some of the references to L. fragilis in literature cannot be correct.
LeplOsens
Folioser;s
Lep,oseris
Leptoseris gardineri v. d. HORST, 1921
(Plate 14, Fig. 7)
gardiner; 1921 , v. d . HORST. 82.
1976. PILLAI & SCHEE R, 40.
1980. VERON & PI CHON, 40; figs. 67- 70 (synonymy ).
1980, DlNESEN. 196 , pI. 10/ 1- 3.
1980. HEAD, 149. 449.
papyrQcea 1892, REHBERC, 26; pJ s... 218 ; 4/ 2 (non papyraa a DANA ).
papymu a 1905 , GARDINER, 947; pI. 92123 .
Included in the material, collected by Prof. FRICKE with his submersible " Geo", is also L. gardineri.
It is a small fragment about 55 mm wide, consisting of a bifurcating, flat branch; the two twigs also have
branchlets. Corallites 2 to 4 mm in diameter with distinct thecal rims . Back side of the branches smooth
with fine striations.
L. gardineri is similar to L. papyracea (DANA), but the latter is much smaller with spuerficial corallites.