Acropora aspera (Dana, 1846)

Santodomingo, Nadiezhda, Wallace, Carden C. & Johnson, Kenneth G., 2015, Fossils reveal a high diversity of the staghorn coral genera Acropora and Isopora (Scleractinia: Acroporidae) in the Neogene of Indonesia, Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society 175 (4), pp. 677-763 : 708

ACROPORA ASPERA GROUP

Diagnosis

Colony varies from corymbose to arborescent forms. Radial corallites labellate, upper part of corallite walls being absent and lower part being developed into a flaring lip, development of which varies among species. Coenosteum between radial corallites open and simple, with few, simple spinules; radial corallites costate ( Wallace & Wolstenholme, 1998; Wallace, 1999).

This is a group of shallow-water species, mostly found on reef flats, inter-island lagoons or the shallow parts of reef slopes ( Wallace, 1999). Three morphospecies were found among the material, including the proposal for resurrection of A. herklotsi and the re-description of A. duncani and A. borneoensis . The only extant species represented in the fossil material is A. papillare . The preservation status of some specimens that are severely broken or abraded fragments did not allow identification to species level, but they are included under the aspera group in Table S2.