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| hard corals text index | photo index |
| Phylum Cnidaria > Class Anthozoa > Subclass Zoantharia/Hexacorallia > Order Scleractinia > Family Faviidae |
| Honey-comb
hexagonal corals awaiting identification * Family Merulinidae updated Nov 2019 Where seen? Hard corals with large hexagonal corallites are sometimes seen on some of our shores. Features: Colonies seen 10-20cm, generally boulder-shaped, but somewhat irregular and not perfectly spherical. The corallites large (1-2cm) have shared walls and form large irregular cells with sharp angular edges of various sizes and shapes. The walls are thin and tall, corallites are more tubular with a broad 'base'. The result is a rather irregular pattern of large polygons that resembles a honey comb. The polyps are large and fleshy with a ring of many tentacles around a large oral disk. Colony colours seen include brown, yellow, blue and purple. Some species of corals recorded for Singapore that have these patterns include: Favites, Goniastrea and Leptastrea species. It's hard to distinguish them without close examination of small features and they are grouped here by large external features for convenience of display. Sometime confused with Neat hexa corals (Pseudosiderastrea tayami) which has more conical corallites with a narrow 'base'. Another coral with honeycomb shaped corallites is Gardineroseris planulata of Family Agariciidae. |
 Pulau Hantu, May 05 |
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 Sentosa, Oct 03 |
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 Pulau Hantu, May 05 |
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 Cyrene Reef, Jun 08  |
 Pulau Semakau, Apr 08  |
 Sentosa, May 07  |
*Species are difficult to positively identify without close examination.
On this website, they are grouped by external features for convenience of display
| Honey-comb hexagonal corals on Singapore shores |
On wildsingapore
flickr
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| Other sightings on Singapore shores |
 Terumbu Berkas, Jan 10  |
 Pulau Senang, Jun 10  |
 Pulau Salu, Jun 10  |
 Pulau Salu, Jun 10  |
 Pulau Salu, Jun 10  |
 Pulau Berkas, May 10 |