Seasons of Wildlife
Due to its Central Pacific location, Kingman Reef remains a haven for marine life throughout the year. The two small coral rubble ridges that remain emergent at Kingman Reef are used as roosting sites for brown boobies and migratory shorebirds.
Featured Species
Crystal clear ocean waters support a spectacular diversity of corals and other marine invertebrates, algae, fishes, marine mammals, and sea turtles at Kingman Reef. Th reef is known to be the most undisturbed coral reef within the U.S., complete with a greater proportion of apex predators, such as sharks, than at any other studied coral reef ecosystem in the world.
Although no permanent land is found here, two small emergent coral rubble spits occur on the northeastern and southeastern sides of the reef. In addition to the three acres of emergent reef, Kingman Reef National Wildlife Refuge includes 487,016 acres of submerged reefs and associated waters, out to its 50 nautical mile boundary.
More than 225 species of fish have been recorded at the reef, including sharks, rays, eels, groupers, jacks, goatfishes, butterflyfishes, damselfishes, mullets wrasses, parrotfishes, surgeonfishes, and tuna. The Refuge supports a sizable population of bottlenose dolphins and melon-headed whales, as well as several species of giant clams.
Kingman Reef is home to some of the oldest deep water corals ever observed, with some gold coral colonies estimated to be 5,000 years old. These reefs support spectacular coral diversity (205 species including 181 stony corals through 2008), an abundance of mushroom corals and anemones on lagoon reefs, and many varieties of table and staghorn corals flourishing on ocean-facing reefs.
