Lau, Y.W.

Octocorallia (Cnidaria: Anthozoa) are a dominant component of Caribbean coral communities. There can be up to 60 octocoral species on a single Caribbean coral reef (Sanchez et al., 1997). Despite the fact that they are dominant macrofauna on many Caribbean reefs, taxonomic questions related to Caribbean octocorals have received relatively little attention (Sánchez et al., 2003).

Hardly any studies have been done concerning the octcoral fauna of St. Eustatius. Previous research here was mainly focussed on shallow water reachable by snorkelling. Therefore a good species list is lacking for octocorals, as their bulk resides at > 5 m depth. Owing to the presence of volcanic underwater landscapes and reefs surrounding the island, many habitats are available to octocorals. 

This article was published in the following report:

MARINE BIODIVERSITY SURVEY OF ST. EUSTATIUS, DUTCH CARIBBEAN 2015 by Naturalis Biodiversity Center and the Netherlands ANEMOON Foundation

The genus Microcharon is known in the Caribbean from the widely separated islands of Bonaire and Cuba, occurring in brackish and freshwater subterranean environments. Here we describe a new species from reef sands off St. Eustatius, eastern Caribbean. Morphological differences are small between the eleven other marine or coastal groundwater Microcharon species that are known worldwide, and comparisons do not show a biogeographic pattern of sequential dispersion.