Plate fire coral

The plate fire coral is the big, rugged cousin of the fire corals: it grows thick vertical limestone plates that often fuse into winding, honeycomb-like wall systems. Its colour runs from mustard yellow to brownish, and here too the plate edges are paler. At first glance it can pass for dead rock, because the surface looks smooth – in reality thousands of pinprick pores hide hair-thin polyps armed with stinging cells.

Fire corals are not true corals but hydrozoans, relatives of jellyfish – and Millepora platyphylla is one of the most potently stinging of them all. The chunky plate shape is no accident: this species withstands the roughest wave action, which is exactly why it grows thickest where the reef top meets the open sea. Its colonies regenerate quickly from breakage, and detached fragments simply grow on as new colonies – which is why you sometimes see entire "fields of walls".

Around Hurghada you will find it on the exposed sides of the outer reefs: large continuous colonies grow on the reef tops of Umm Gamar and Abu Ramada and along the shallow rim of El Fanadir. Snorkelers often glide right over it – which is exactly why it pays to know it: never stand on it or grab it, not even with gloves. For the reef it is a wave-breaking fortress; for you it should stay strictly a spectacle.