The reefs at Palmyra Atoll, a small outlying atoll in the equatorial Pacific Ocean, have been undergoing a shift from stony corals to systems dominated by corallimorphs, marine invertebrates that share traits with both anemones and hard corals. A published study in Coral Reefs led by University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa marine biology researchers has discovered that although the invading corallimorph is the same species that has been there for decades, its appearance recently changed, and it became much more insidious.