Wizard Reef () is a

coral Corals are colonial marine invertebrates within the subphylum Anthozoa of the phylum Cnidaria. They typically form compact Colony (biology), colonies of many identical individual polyp (zoology), polyps. Coral species include the important Coral ...

reef in the

Farquhar Group The Farquhar Group belong to the Outer Islands of the Seychelles, lying in the southwest of the island nation, more than southwest of the capital, Victoria, on Mahé Island. Area The total land area of all islands in the group is less than ...

in the Outer Islands of the

Seychelles Seychelles (, ; ), officially the Republic of Seychelles (; Seychellois Creole: ), is an island country and archipelagic state consisting of 155 islands (as per the Constitution) in the Indian Ocean. Its capital and largest city, Victoria, ...

. It is southwest of the capital,

Victoria Victoria most commonly refers to: * Queen Victoria (1819–1901), Queen of the United Kingdom and Empress of India * Victoria (state), a state of Australia * Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, a provincial capital * Victoria, Seychelles, the capi ...

, on

Mahé Island Mahe, Mahé, Mähe, or MAHE may refer to: Places China * Mahe Township (, lit. "Horse Creek Village") in Li County in Gansu Estonia * Mähe, a subdistrict of Tallinn, Estonia India * Mahe, India, a municipality in Mahe distri ...

History

Wizard Reef was named after

Fairfax Moresby Admiral of the Fleet Sir Fairfax Moresby GCB (29 November 1786 – 21 January 1877) was a Royal Navy officer. As a junior officer he took part in the unsuccessful expedition to capture Ferrol in Spain during the French Revolutionary Wars. He ...

's ship ''Wizard'', which visited the reef in 1822.

Geography

Wizard Reef is roughly elliptical. It measures east-to–west and north-to–south, covering an area of about . The land mass is barely . It is barely above water, as the sea breaks heavily over it. The reef's islet is in the western half. The location is north of the northern tip of

Providence Atoll Providence Atoll is part of the Farquhar Group of islands in the Seychelles that are part of the Outer Islands. It lies southwest of the capital city, Victoria, on Mahé Island. The atoll consists of Providence Island in the north, Bancs Provid ...

Administration

Wizard Reef belongs to Outer Islands District.

Flora and fauna

The islet has many

hawksbill turtles The hawksbill sea turtle (''Eretmochelys imbricata'') is a critically endangered sea turtle belonging to the family Cheloniidae. It is the only extant species in the genus ''Eretmochelys''. The species has a global distribution that is largely ...

nesting.Google Books
/ref>

Image gallery

File:Seychelles large map.jpg, Map 1 File:Outer Islands in Seychelles.svg, District Map

References

External links

Info on the reef
Islands of Outer Islands (Seychelles) Reefs of Africa Uninhabited islands of Seychelles {{Seychelles-geo-stub