Scientists at KAUST have discovered that one of the ocean's most recognizable corals, the iconic “organ pipe coral” - long believed to be a single widespread species - includes at least 15 genetically distinct lineages. Two of these lineages are currently known only from the Red Sea.   

The findings, published in Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution, redraw the evolutionary history of a coral so familiar it's been a textbook fixture since the 1700s — and they raise a striking question: what else are we missing on the reef?  

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