Scroll coral

The scroll coral (Turbinaria mesenterina) is one of the most sculptural stony corals in the Red Sea: its thin, hard plates twist into swirling funnels, roses and scrolls, and a colony can reach a metre and a half across. It is usually greyish-green or tan, with the plate surfaces dotted by small cone-shaped cups – home to the polyps, which open mostly at night.

The species is a true survivor: it is one of the few stony corals that copes well with turbid, sediment-laden water. The twisting plate shape is no accident but clever engineering – sediment slides off the near-vertical surfaces, while the funnel arrangement gathers every scrap of light. The same coral grows as a tightly curled rose in bright shallow water but spreads into wide, flat dishes deeper down: the colony's shape is practically a built-in depth gauge.

Around Hurghada you will find it in the more sheltered, slightly murkier bays and on the inner sides of the reefs, typically at 3–15 metres – easy to see while snorkeling too. Thanks to its sediment tolerance it often holds on where fussier Acropora corals have given up, which is why researchers count it among the hopes of future reefs. Its thin plates are fragile, though: one careless fin kick can snap off decades of growth.