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| hard corals text index | photo index |
| Phylum Cnidaria > Class Anthozoa > Subclass Zoantharia/Hexacorallia > Order Scleractinia > Family Dendrophyllidae |
| Disk
corals Turbinaria sp. Family Dendrophylliidae updated Nov 2019 Where seen? These disk-shaped hard corals are among the most commonly seen on many of our shores. Features: Colonies can be large (20-50cm). A colony can take on a wide variety of shapes, depending on surrounding environment factors. Thus it is hard to distinguish Turbinaria species by the colony shape alone. Colonies may form plates that may simply be flat disks; or encrusting to follow the contours of the surface; sometimes with towers rising from the centre; to cup- or vase-like shapes. Colonies growing in areas with high water movement may become twisted and folded into flower-like shapes or other fantasty shapes. They come in a wide range of colours from blue, green to yellow and brown, and pink often in pastel shades. The corallites are distinctively spaced apart, usually with a smooth surface in between them. Corallites are only found on the upper surface of the colony. In some species, the corallites are shallow cups sunken into the surface, in others sticking out in tubular or conical shapes. Polyps generally look like tiny sea anemones with a tubular body column and a ring of tentacles around a central mouth. Species are difficult to positively identify without close examination. On this website, they are grouped by external features for convenience of display. See details below. Status and threats: Some Turbinaria corals recorded for Singapore are listed as globally threatened by the IUCN. Like other creatures of the intertidal zone, they are affected by human activities such as reclamation and pollution. Trampling by careless visitors, and over-collection also have an impact on local populations. |
 Tuas, Jul 06 |
 Two different kinds of Disk corals |
| Some Disk corals on Singapore shores |
 Corallites sunken to sticking out and tubular, large (0.6cm). |
 Polyps large and expanded even during the day. |
 Corallites sunken to conical. |
 Polyps tiny with fewer short entacles. |
 Corallites conical. |
 Polyps tiny with many short tentacles. |
 Corallites tiny low rounded bumps. |
 Polyps tiny with few short tentacles. |
*Species are difficult to positively identify without close examination.
On this website, they are grouped by external features for convenience of display.
| Turbinaria
species recorded for Singapore from Danwei Huang, Karenne P. P. Tun, L. M Chou and Peter A. Todd. 30 Dec 2009. An inventory of zooxanthellate sclerectinian corals in Singapore including 33 new records **the species found on many shores in Danwei's paper. in red are those listed as threatened on the IUCN global list.
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