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| hard corals text index | photo index |
| Phylum Cnidaria > Class Anthozoa > Subclass Zoantharia/Hexacorallia > Order Scleractinia > Family Faviidae > ring favid corals |
| Tiny
ring favid coral Cyphastrea sp. * Family Faviidae updated Nov 11 Where seen? These hard corals with tiny circular corallites are commonly seen on many of our Southern shores. Features: Colonies seen 15-30cm, sometimes much larger. The colony is generally a smooth boulder shape, sometimes forming hillocks of several smooth boulder shapes of different sizes. The corallites have separate walls that are rather thick, forming a tiny circular ring (0.2cm or less) and are packed close to, but not squashed against one another. The result is a regular pattern of tiny rings. The surface between corallites often has tiny granular bumps. The polyps are tiny with many short tentacles, usually close to the colony surface, i.e., body column is not long. Colours seen include brown, yellow, orange and green. Monstastrea curta and Favia stelligera of the same Family Faviidae may appear similar. 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. Status and threats: None of the Cyphastrea species recorded for Singapore are listed as globally threatened by the IUCN. But 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. |
 Sisters Island, Jun 07  |
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Tiny ring favid corals on Singapore shores
 Sentosa, Jul 05 |
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 St. John's Island, Aug 08 |
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 Labrador, Feb 06 |
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 Cyrene Reef, Jul 11 |
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more photos of tiny ring favid corals on Singapore shores
northern shores part 1 | part 2
southern shores part 1 | part 2 | part 3 | part 4 | part 5 | part 6 | part 7 | part 8 | part 9 | part 10
*Species are difficult to positively identify without close examination.
On this website, they are grouped by external features for convenience of display.
| Cyphastrea
species recorded for Singapore 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.