After overwhelmingly positive feedback from the previous workshops, the Online Coral ID Workshops are back, and now spanning 4 days. That’s 16 hours of Indo-Pacific Coral ID Training! Proper coral identification matters and this workshop will teach you all the fundamentals you need to know.

The workshop will be based on the new 2022 Coral Finder Toolkit, a suite of proven, practical resources for coral identification. The Indo-Pacific Coral Finder uses a visual approach that makes it possible for beginners to advance rapidly with little prior knowledge.

The course is led by Russell Kelley – author of five editions of the Indo-Pacific Coral Finder and the Reef Finder, with assistance from Kevin Erickson. The workshop uses audio-visual and hands-on training, tutorials, and instruction and includes a take-home Coral Finder Toolkit: Coral Finder 2022, a comprehensive workshop manual, and audiovisual training.

Participants learn how to use the newly updated Indo-Pacific Coral Finder 2022 to identify Indo-Pacific hard corals to genus regardless of growth form. (Also includes the stony non-scleractinians.)

Special emphasis is placed on techniques for field identification, self-directed learning, and problem-solving. For non-coral specialists, the workshop rapidly develops basic coral identification skills. Current or future coral specialists will upgrade their ID skills to the current state of molecular taxonomy.

The workshop provides an introduction to species identification and how to approach it maturely. The training applies equally to the topside or underwater. Even people with extensive prior knowledge of corals will benefit significantly from the problem-solving training built into the Coral Finder workshop.

The workshop also summarizes the changes and implications of new molecular taxonomy findings while providing an easy-to-grasp, practical, field-focused approach to coral identification.