Collection of modern hard coral scaled corallite images from the ABC Islands (Leeward Antilles, Caribbean)

Collection of corallite close-up images from modern hard coral colonies on the islands of Aruba, Bonaire, and Curaçao (Netherlands Antilles). This dataset was produced in the summer of 2022 and 2023, during the field component of "Frozen in Time", a project within the DFG Priority Programme (SPP2299) "Tropical Climate Variability & Coral Reefs". Corallite close-ups were taken of each colony with an Olympus TG-6 camera (5 mm focal length and resolution of 4000x2672 pixels). A minimum of five, scaled photos were collected from different coral body parts to account for intra-specimen morphological variability and minimize any potential bias resulting from a particular camera position or angle. Each folder contains close-up images of individual colonies identified in the metadata (Modern_Corallite_Collection_Metadata.csv). Individual colony files follow this naming convention: MC-A-001, where 'MC' denotes modern colony and 'A' indicates Aruba. With 'B' and 'C' representing Bonaire and Curaçao, respectively.