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| hard corals text index | photo index |
| Phylum Cnidaria > Class Anthozoa > Subclass Zoantharia/Hexacorallia > Order Scleractinia > Family Faviidae > hexagonal favid corals |
| Honey-comb
hexagonal favid corals awaiting identification * Family Faviidae updated May 13 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 Favid corals recorded for Singapore that have these patterns include: Favites, Goniastrea and Lepastrea 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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 Sisters Island, Mar 06 |
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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  |
Honey-comb hexagonal favid corals on Singapore shores
| Photos for free download from wildsingapore flickr |
more photos of honey-comb hexagonal favid corals on Singapore shores
*Species are difficult to positively identify without close examination.
On this website, they are grouped by external features for convenience of display.
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