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| hard corals text index | photo index |
| Phylum Cnidaria > Class Anthozoa > Subclass Zoantharia/Hexacorallia > Order Scleractinia > Family Faviidae |
| Jigsaw
maze corals awaiting identification * Family Merulinidae updated Nov 2019 Where seen? These corals with crooked maze-like corallites that look like jigsaw puzzles are often seen on many of our Southern shores. Features: Colonies seen 10-25cm, sometimes larger. Colonies are generally a smooth hemi-spherical shape. Some are nearly ball-shaped rather than hemi-spherical. The corallites have parallel walls that form long meandering valleys. The result is a regular fine pattern that resembles a jigsaw puzzle. In some, the shared walls are tall and thin, in others rather broad. Some have a groove at the top of the walls. Those seen with tentacles extended had short tentacles emerging from broad fleshy tissue. Tentacles have rounded tips. Colours seen include pale beige, brown, green, blue and purple, often contrasting coloured walls and valleys. Some species of corals recorded for Singapore that have these patterns include: Oulophyllia, Platygyra 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. Merulind corals with corallites that form short hexagonal or crooked cells are grouped under Maze hexagonal corals. |
 Kusu Island, Jun 04  |
 Kusu Island, Jun 21  |
 Sentosa, Jun 06  |
 Sentosa, May 07  |
 Kusu Island, Jun 04  |
*Species are difficult to positively identify without close examination.
On this website, they are grouped by external features for convenience of display.
| Jigsaw maze corals on Singapore shores |
On wildsingapore
flickr
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| Other sightings on Singapore shores |
 Pulau Salu, Jun 10  Bleaching. |
 Pulau Berkas, May 10 |
 Pulau Pawai, Dec 09  |
 Terumbu Salu, Jan 10  |
 Pulau Salu, Aug 10  |