VOLUME 13 NUMBER 2 (July to December 2020)

Katrina S. Luzon¹, Denise Danielle Alcantara¹, and Wilfredo Y. Licuanan*^1,2

¹Br. Alfred Shields FSC Ocean Research Center,
      De La Salle University, Manila 1004 Philippines
²Biology Department, College of Science,
      De La Salle University, Manila 1004 Philippines

The Philippines cradles at least 505 species of hard corals (DeVantier and Turak 2017), which is the highest number of species presently recorded in the Indo-West Pacific. In a region with such extraordinary diversity, distinguishing between species or even between genera can be a challenge, especially since the distinctions between species may be blurred at larger geographic scales. This challenge emphasizes the need for locally specific, quality field guides and monographs, and access to an array of well-curated specimens collected from the region by taxonomic authorities. The Coenomap website, hosted by the Br. Alfred Shields FSC Ocean Research (SHORE) Center of De La Salle University, was initially developed to provide a free and accessible repository of relevant taxonomic references for hard corals of the Order Scleractinia. The repository brings together the original descriptions and high-resolution photographs of both the macromorphology and the micromorphology of 156 type specimens of Francisco Nemenzo in The Nemenzo Virtual Museum page of Coenomap. The Nemenzo Virtual Museum is one of the vital elements of Coenomap in the pursuit of encouraging and facilitating the identification of corals and the mapping of their distributions in the Philippines.