List of corals of the Houtman Abrolhos
The marine waters of the Houtman Abrolhos, an island chain off the coast of Western Australia, have been recorded as containing 194 species of coral in 50 genera. This is a surprisingly high coral diversity, considering the high latitude of the reef, and the relatively low diversity of other biota. This is a list of corals of the Houtman Abrolhos:
Houtman Abrolhos
When numbers of individuals are taken into account, the tropical birds overwhelmingly dominate. The islands are one of the most important breeding sites for tropical seabirds in Australia and have been identified by BirdLife International as an Important Bird Area (IBA). They contain by far the largest colonies of wedge-tailed shearwater in the eastern Indian Ocean, with over a million breeding pairs recorded there in 1994. They also contain Western Australia's only breeding colonies of the lesser noddy, and the largest colonies in Western Australia of the little shearwater, white-faced storm petrel, common noddy, Caspian tern, crested tern, roseate tern and fairy tern. In addition, they contain important breeding areas for the Pacific reef heron, Pacific gull, bridled tern, white-bellied sea eagle and osprey.