Biogeographic distribution

There are about 25 described species of the genus Trapezia, all of which obligate symbionts of Pocilloporid corals (Huber, 1983). The genus has a tropical distribution matching precisely the range of Pocilloporid coral; ranging from the Red Sea through the Indo-West Pacific and to the Eastern Tropical Pacific (Huber, 1983) (fig. 1). T. cymodoce has a very wide geographic range, covering the majority of the range of the genus as a whole. They range from the Red sea, to south of  the coast of South Africa and Madagascar, east through the tropical Indian Ocean and Indo-West Pacific and out into the central South Pacific Ocean, found as far east as Tahiti (Galil and Clark, 1990, Castro, 1999a, Serène, 1984, Castro, 1999b, Castro, 1997a, Castro, 1997b) (fig. 1).