Small hexagonal favid corals (Faviidae) on the Shores of Singapore

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Phylum Cnidaria > Class Anthozoa > Subclass Zoantharia/Hexacorallia > Order Scleractinia > Family Faviidae

Small hexagonal corals
awaiting identification *
Family Merulinidae
updated Nov 2019

Where seen? Hard coral with small hexagonal corallites are commonly seen on many of our shores.

Features: Colonies seen 10-20cm, sometimes larger. The colony is generally a smooth boulder shape, but somewhat irregular and not perfectly spherical. The corallites (1cm) have shared walls, angular generally form hexagonal cells. The walls are generally thick and short. Colony colours seen include brown, green, blue and purple.

Some species of corals recorded for Singapore that have these patterns include: Favites, Goniastrea and Platygyra 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.

Hard corals with small hexagonal corallites which form colonies that are more encrusting and have jutting bumps, lumps or columns of angular corallites are grouped under Columnar hexagonal corals.

St. John's Island, May 06

Sisters Island, Nov 11

Kusu Island, Jun 05

Pulau Hantu, Mar 07

*Species are difficult to positively identify without close examination.
On this website, they are grouped by external features for convenience of display.

Small hexagonal corals on Singapore shores

On wildsingapore flickr