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| hard corals text index | photo index |
| Phylum Cnidaria > Class Anthozoa > Subclass Zoantharia/Hexacorallia > Order Scleractinia > Family Merulinidae |
| Hedgehog
corals Echinopora sp.* Family Merulinidae updated Nov 2019 Where seen? These delicate plate hard corals with little bumps are rarely encountered, so far only on our undisturbed Southern islands. Features: Colonies 20-30cm. May be boulder-shaped, branching or form plates. Those seen were mostly encrusting thin plates often with wavy edges. Small corallites (less than 0.5cm) that form prickly bumps with characteristic prickly ridges in the spaces between the corallites. Polyp tentacles are only extended at night. Colours seen include brown, yellow, blue and purple. Status and threats: Some of the Hedgehog corals recorded for Singapore are listed as globally Near 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. |
 Raffles Lighthouse, Jul 06 |
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 Raffles Lighthouse, Jul 06  |
 Raffles Lighthouse, May 04  |
 Pulau Semakau, Aug 08  |
*Species are difficult to positively identify without close examination.
On this website, they are grouped by external features for convenience of display.
| Hedgehog corals on Singapore shores |
On wildsingapore
flickr
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| Other sightings on Singapore shores |
 Tanah Merah Ferry Terminal, Jun 22 Photo shared by Loh Kok Sheng on facebook. |
| Echinopora
species recorded for Singapore 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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