Coral spawning at Camiguin Island – WS Philippines
The event was captured by our WS Philippines movie maker and photographer Mike McCue (Underwater World Guam). Please enjoy this wonderful movie!
Special thanks are due to the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources, especially to Visa Tan-Dimerin (director BFAR, region 10), who invited us to Camiguin, and to Vianney M Gapuz and his team, who joined us at the island.
We headed to Camiguin right after the coral conservation and restoration seminar at Xavier University and arrived in time for a tasty dinner at the local BFAR office. Then the first night dive was on schedule, even though late, we were lucky to observe an impressive Porites spawning, which continued the second night. Porites―Porites lutea cf and Porites cylindrica (not in the movie)―released sperm clouds and eggs separately, meaning they have two different sexes (and are therefore gonochoric).
We hope Mike's romantic short film on coral love may be an incentive for our following citizen scientists, so that the data base on coral spawning times in the Philippines documented via Coral Spawning Watch (iNaturalist project) will grow soon!
See you under water :)
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[pic 2]
