Maze hexa corals (Merulinidae) on the Shores of Singapore

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

Maze hexagonal corals
awaiting identification *
Family Merulinidae
updated Nov 2019

Where seen? Hard corals with irregular hexagonal favid 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. Some form an encrusting hemi-spherical colony. The corallites have shared walls and form irregular cells of different shapes and sizes, but generally with about six sides. The result is a rather irregular pattern of hexagons or short angular shapes. In some, the walls are tall and thin. Those seen with tentacles extended had medium length tentacles with rounded tips. Colony colours seen include brown, green, blue and purple, usually in pastel shades.

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

Merulinid corals with maze-like walls that form long valleys or form jigsaw-like patterns are grouped as Jigsaw maze corals.

Sentosa, Jul 05

Labrador, Jul 05

St. John's Island, May 07

Pulau Semakau, Sep 05

Sentosa, Nov 11

Beting Bronok, Jul 05

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

Maze hexagonal corals on Singapore shores

On wildsingapore flickr