Philippines - Anilao: Anilao Scuba Dive Center house reef (night dive)
Part of the regional summaries: Philippines - Luzon and Philippines
More info
Central Philippines (NOAA CRW virtual station)A classic Anilao muck night dive over silty sand and rubble rather than reef framework, the highlight a banded sea krait foraging across the bottom alongside urchins, dorid nudibranchs, and a possible frogfish. No coral-cover figure applies — this is sediment habitat, not reef, and none was computed.
Isang klasikong muck night dive sa Anilao sa ibabaw ng maputik na buhangin at durog na koral sa halip na balangkas ng bahura; ang pinakatampok ay isang walo-walo (banded sea krait) na naghahanap ng pagkain sa sahig ng dagat kasama ang mga tuyom, dorid na nudibranch, at isang posibleng frogfish. Walang naaangkop na bilang ng saklaw ng koral - tirahang sedimento ito, hindi bahura, at wala ring kinalkula.
Salin ng buod na ito gamit ang AI; ang Ingles ang opisyal na bersyon.
Nine independent survey stations shown with the program’s logo — click one to see how far it is from this site.
Four other CRD dive sites with their own pages within 5 km shown in orange — click a marker to open its page.
20 of the 25 photographs on this page are shown beside the text that discusses them under "Site description" below.
Site description
General benthic features
The bottom is low-relief silty sand, pebble, and rubble flats scattered with sunken timber and branch debris; attached structure is sparse, limited to small anemones, isolated soft-coral colonies, a few isolated hard coral heads, and turf-covered rock, and no reef framework is visible in any frame (e.g., Image 1, Image 2, Image 3, Image 4, Image 5, Image 18, Image 19, Image 20).
Coral cover
- No coral cover is reported for this site: it was a night dive over sand and rubble, and the photographs are close-ups of animals rather than reef views.
Fish and other fauna
The fauna is the entire point. A banded sea krait (Laticauda colubrina) was photographed foraging across the rubble in several frames, the standout observation of the dive (e.g., Image 14, Image 15).
Porcupinefish rest fully spined on open sand (e.g., Image 6, Image 7, Image 8).
A long-spined urchin shelters a small lionfish beside a few hard coral heads (e.g., Image 3, Image 4). The sea-slug showing is strong: large cream dorids patterned with dark maroon reticulate networks, and a pair of spotted dorids with violet mantle margins together in one frame (e.g., Image 21, Image 22, Image 23).
Marbled Saron-type shrimp cross the open sand, a scorpionfish lies buried against the sediment, and a Chloeia fireworm swims free against black water (e.g., Image 16, Image 17, Image 25).
Two frames show a pink-orange animal on sunken timber that cannot be separated between frogfish and sponge at this resolution (e.g., Image 13).
Comparisons with other data
We found no other surveys at this site as of 2026. Within 5 km, nine Reef Check stations recorded station-year means of 19–89% hard coral cover between 2010 and 2017; the nearest, Reef Check at San Teodoro, 1.80 km away, read 27% in 2010.
Dive record
The fourth dive of 30 September 2016, entering at 18:21 from the Anilao Scuba Dive Center house reef — a classic Anilao muck night dive rather than a coral-reef dive.
Other notes
All 35 frames on file were reviewed.
Independent surveys nearby
Within 5 km, 9 independent survey stations recorded hard coral cover in 23 surveys between 2010 and 2017. Of the 3 stations surveyed in more than one year, 3 declined (by 1.0–33 points) between their first and latest surveys. Two stations share the longest span (2010–2017); one, Twin Rocks (Reef Check, 2.96 km away), went from 20% in 2010 to 19% in 2017. The most recent nearby survey is from 2017, so these values predate recent heat stress.
Collected by other programs using different methods (Reef Check uses point-intercept transects), so these are context for the figures above, not a like-for-like comparison. Where a station was surveyed more than once, the cell shows either the range of its values or, as a single value, the mean of surveys made in one year. Station names are not dive-site names. Values above 70% are marked “best patch”: surveys often target the densest coral on a reef, so these may overstate the site as a whole.
| Agency | Site / location | Date | Hard coral cover (%) | Distance |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Reef Check | San Teodoro | 2010 | 27% | 1.80 km |
| Reef Check | Bagalangit Koala | 2010 | 70% | 2.38 km |
| Reef Check | Twin Rocks | 2010–2017 | 19–34% (4 surveys) | 2.96 km |
| Reef Check | Acacia Resort and Dive Center | 2010–2017 | 49–58% (4 surveys) | 4.38 km |
| Reef Check | Koala, Bagalangit | 2011–2017 | 39–72% (range of yearly means; 8 surveys) best patch | 2.78 km |
| Reef Check | Arthur's Rock | 2013 | 36%, mean of 2 surveys (5 m and 8 m) | 1.96 km |
| Reef Check | Inner Layag Layag Reef | 2014 | 64% | 2.36 km |
| Reef Check | Tingloy - Poblacion Reef | 2014 | 89% best patch | 3.50 km |
| Reef Check | Ligaya Bantong Buhay MPA | 2017 | 56% | 3.83 km |
Data & links
All images from Coral Reef Diagnostics. Data on this page are from Coral Reef Diagnostics (the dive record) and the organizations named in the data sources above; Coral Reef Diagnostics has no coral cover estimate of its own at this site.
© Coral Reef Diagnostics.