---
title: Blade Fire Coral (Millepora platyphylla)
scientific_name: Millepora platyphylla
common_name: Blade Fire Coral
taxon: Hydrozoans
conservation_status: EN - Endangered
published: 2026-08-08T08:16:55.382Z
updated: 2026-08-08T08:56:11.829Z
tags: Blade Fire Coral, Millepora platyphylla, Hydrozoans, Red Sea, Marine Life, Diving
url: https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/invertebrate/stinging/hydrozoans/blade-fire-coral
---

# Blade Fire Coral (*Millepora platyphylla*)

## Quick facts

- **Group:** Hydrozoans (*Hydrozoa*)
- **Size:** colonies to 1 m across
- **Depth:** 0-20 m
- **Diet:** Planktivore
- **Activity:** Cathemeral
- **Rarity:** Common
- **Habitat:** Exposed reef fronts and upper slopes
- **Reproduction:** Broadcast spawner, Budding
- **Hazard:** Dangerous, Venomous
- **CITES:** Appendix II
- **Conservation status:** EN - Endangered

## How to recognise it

- upright blades and plates, mustard to yellow-brown
- surface smooth with pale growing edges, no visible polyps
- fine hair-like tentacles when looked at closely
- colonies up to 1 m across

Mustard to yellow-brown plates standing upright from the reef, often arranged in overlapping blades that meet at angles, with pale growing margins along the top edge. The surface looks deceptively smooth: unlike a stony coral there are no cup-shaped polyps to see, only pinprick pores from which fine hair-like tentacles emerge.

Those hairs are the problem. Fire corals are not corals at all but colonial hydroids, closer relatives of jellyfish, and their stinging cells fire through skin on contact. The result is immediate burning, a red welt within minutes and itching that can last for days; on a wrist or the back of a hand it is one of the most common injuries on these reefs. Wetsuits and gloves stop it. Its CITES Appendix II listing surprises people: it is not a judgement on this species, but a blanket listing covering every reef-builder that lays down a limestone skeleton, meant to control the ornamental trade in coral. The colonies favour exposed reef fronts with strong water movement and grow into the shape that current allows, so the same species can look like a plate, a blade or an encrusting sheet depending on where it sits.

## Also known as

- **English:** sheet fire coral
- **German:** Brettartige Feuerkoralle, Platten-Feuerkoralle
- **Russian:** Огненный коралл пластинчатый

## Scientific synonyms

- *Millepora ehrenbergi* Milne Edwards, 1860
- *Millepora incrassata* Milne Edwards, 1860
- *Millepora insignis* Verrill, 1864
- *Millepora platyphylla var. truncata* Dana, 1846
- *Millepora platyphylla var. verrucosa* Milne Edwards, 1860
- *Millepora porulosa* Ehrenberg, 1834
- *Millepora squarrosa incrassata* Milne Edwards, 1860
- *Millepora truncata* Dana, 1846
- *Millepora verrucosa* Milne Edwards, 1860

## Range

Fiji, Indian Ocean, Indo-Pacific, Marshall Islands, North Pacific Ocean, Seychelles, Sharm El Sheikh, South Africa, South Pacific Ocean, United States

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*Source: [Red Sea Creatures](https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/invertebrate/stinging/hydrozoans/blade-fire-coral)*
*Updated: August 8, 2026*