Smithsonian Photo Essay Documents Coral Reefs Across 15 Global Locations

A photo essay published by Smithsonian magazine presents 15 images of coral reefs and their inhabitants, photographed between 2010 and 2025 across the Atlantic, Pacific, and Red Sea. Coral are marine animals classified alongside jellyfish and sea anemones. The featured locations span New Caledonia, the Great Barrier Reef, Boynton Beach in Florida, Roatán in Honduras, Bunaken National Marine Park in North Sulawesi, Raja Ampat, Palawan, the Gulf of Eilat (also called the Gulf of Aqaba), Ambitle Island, and Eilat. The Coral Triangle, a marine region covering six countries in the Western Pacific, contains more than 75 percent of all known coral species. Photographers credited include Laura Jourdan, Lawrence Levy, Tom Shlesinger, Tracy Kerestesh, Romina Bayer, Mok Wai Hoe, Gilles Auroux, Ramon I. Castillo, Kat Zhou, and Caitlin Winskill. Among the subjects are a branching Acropora coral spawning pinkish bundles of eggs and sperm, a reef shark above a coral head, damselfish in Raja Ampat, and a lionfish along a coral colony. Conservationists have launched programs to protect reefs, growing samples from healthy specimens in monitored environments, while locals in Palawan remove debris from the animals' habitat. An underwater observatory built near Eilat more than 40 years ago has become part of the seascape. The piece is credited to Allison Scates, with Tracy Scott Forson identified as a senior editor at Smithsonian magazine.