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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 11 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. |
Disk corals on Singapore shores
 Colony plate-like thick (1cm) may be 'folded' into a cabbage-like shape. |
 Corallites cup-like large, polyps large (1-1.5cm) with many fat tentacles. |
 Colony plate-like thick (1cm) encrusting, edges against the surface. |
 Corallites conical, polyps (about 1cm) with few long, thin tentacles. |
 Colony plate-like thin (0.5cm) edges often folded into ruffles. |
 Corallites conical, polyps small (about 1cm) with many short tentacles. |
 Colony plate-like thin (0.2-0.5cm) shaped into a cup or inverted cone. |
 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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Links
References
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Australian Institute of Marine Science, Australia. 3 volumes.
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