Columnar hexagonal corals (Faviidae) on the Shores of Singapore

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

Columnar hexagonal corals
awaiting identification *
Family Merulinidae
updated Nov 2019

Where seen? Hard corals with irregular jutting out lumps of angular corallites are often seen on many of our Southern shores.

Features: Colonies seen 10-20cm encrusting or slightly dome-shaped, with untidy lumps or columns of jutting, angular corallites. The corallites (1-1.5cm) have shared thick walls and form irregular cells of different shapes and sizes, but generally with sharp angles and about six sides. The result is a rather irregular pattern of polygons. Tentacles are seldom seen. Colony colours seen include brown, blue, purple and green. Sometimes, corallite centres in a contrasting colour.

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

Merulinid corals with small hexagonal corallites that form smoother boulder shaped colonies without protruding lumps and bumps are grouped under Small hexagonal corals.

St. John's Island, Sep 04

Sisters Island, Jan 06

Pulau Hantu, Aug 08

Sisters Island, Jul 04

Sisters Island, Nov 05

Raffles Lighthouse, Jun 07

Terumbu Semakau, Mar 11

Pulau Jong, Jul 07

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

Columnar hexagonal corals on Singapore shores

On wildsingapore flickr