Indonesia - Komodo NP: Bonsai Rock

General benthic features

Two wide frames capture the two faces of this reef that Anderson's notes describe. The first is the spectacular one: a near-continuous field of pale lavender-gray corymbose and digitate Acropora, running unbroken to the limit of visibility, with hundreds of red-orange anthias hanging above it and a rust-brown soft-coral bush and chartreuse patches for contrast — Anderson's most impressive corals at 5 m, and effectively a monospecific stand at that scale (e.g., Image 5).

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The second is the other end: a dim, hazy, low-relief slope under a school of yellowtail fusiliers, where the substrate is mostly dark red-brown turf and encrusting algae with only scattered cream corymbose Acropora, small foliose plates, and blue vase sponges — consistent with Anderson's note that the reef eventually became more algal-dominated, and with the further reading in those notes that low relief here reflects strong current (e.g., Image 3).

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Anderson's dive log adds that at 5-10 m the hard coral community became more complex (small massive poritids, Pocillopora eydouxi, Pocillopora acuta, Seriatopora hystrix, and Diploastrea), that Acropora grew to just below the surface (0.5 m), that live coral cover was still high at 20-25 m with high coral diversity at 20 m, that many plating coral species were new to the diver, and that the deep wall was dominated in many places by non-coral invertebrates. A close substrate frame shows the same thing at 30 cm: a small lavender knobby pocilloporid colony surrounded by brown and orange encrusting algae and turf, red macroalgae, small tunicates, and one cream mushroom coral (e.g., Image 1).

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Coral cover

• Reference: Claude CV point count (this site's photos)
• Coral cover: 18% — a blind Claude computer-vision point count of 66 of Anderson's edited photographs (20 points per photo; water, fish, and obstructions excluded). Other computer-vision methods are listed in the method table. These are computer-vision indices over photographs, not a diver transect, and with one frame at near-total Acropora cover and another at heavy turf, the site average depends heavily on which frames went into the run.

Stressors

The photo review found no bleaching, no disease lesions, and nothing man-made; however, a computer-vision point count called 1.0% of coral points bleached (1 of 66 photos). No crown-of-thorns starfish (COTS) or other corallivores were evident.

Fish and other fauna

Two macro frames show the invertebrate life: a large nudibranch, teal with a bold black reticulate pattern and rounded tubercles, on pink crustose coralline algae; and a second, black with a brilliant blue marginal line and blue-tipped appendages, crossing pale sponges (e.g., Image 2, Image 4).

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Anderson's log also records very high fish biomass in places, though the fish were mostly small.

Comparisons with other data

We found no other surveys at this site as of 2026. If you would like to share yours, please email us.

Dive record

One dive, 22 January 2019, 07:52, 58 minutes, max 27.7 m by Anderson's log, 26.7°C (dive-computer average; the note calls it cold, 25-26°C), and 10 m visibility, called poor.