SerriGaming
Member
So while doing some research on Antwerp Zoo, I read that they received living reef building corals in 1959 from a dr. Catala from New Caledonia, who personally brought them over to Belgium. This little anecdote made me wonder which zoo actually displayed the first living reef corals. The book where I found this information doesn't say anything about this being a first or not. Hopefully some of you have some information about the history of reef corals being displayed in zoos.
Edit: A quick search on Google Scholar reveals that Dr. Catala was involved with the first experiments with holding living corals ex situ around 1956:
Perhaps the earliest work on coral propagation was done at the Noumea Aquarium in New Caledonia. As far back as 1956 this aquarium has displayed live field collected corals that were maintained ex-situ in open systems exposed to direct sunlight (Carlson, 1999). Its director Dr. Rene Catala, developed techniques in the early 1960s for propagating Acropora and other stony corals (Catala,1964).
(Source)
Edit: A quick search on Google Scholar reveals that Dr. Catala was involved with the first experiments with holding living corals ex situ around 1956:
Perhaps the earliest work on coral propagation was done at the Noumea Aquarium in New Caledonia. As far back as 1956 this aquarium has displayed live field collected corals that were maintained ex-situ in open systems exposed to direct sunlight (Carlson, 1999). Its director Dr. Rene Catala, developed techniques in the early 1960s for propagating Acropora and other stony corals (Catala,1964).
(Source)
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