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| hard corals text index | photo index |
| Phylum Cnidaria > Class Anthozoa > Subclass Zoantharia/Hexacorallia > Order Scleractinia > Family Poritidae > Goniopora sp. |
| Anemone
coral Goniopora sp.* Family Poritidae updated Oct 11 Where seen? This hard coral with long-bodied polyps is commonly seen on many of our reefs, including those on our Northern shores. Although they are more common on our Southern shores. Features: Colonies clusters of short, fat columns with rounded tops, each about 10-15cm in diameter. The polyps may be large (0.5-1cm in diameter). The polyps have 24 tentacles and are usually extended when submerged, even in daylight. Some may have long skinny tentacles, others have short and fat ones. The body column can be very long (2-5cm). The polyps can retract completely into the skeleton, revealing the small corallites (0.5cm) circular or polygonal holes packed close to one another. Colours seen include shades of purple, pink, brown and blue. May be mistaken for sea anemones when the long polyps are extended and hide the hard skeleton, thus its common name. Another common name is Flower pot coral as the colony looks like a bunch of long-stemmed flowers emerging from a pot. Here's more on how to tell apart large sea anemones with long tentacles and large 'hairy' cnidarians. Sometimes, tiny brown acoel flatworms are seen on the oral disk or body columns of the polyps. |
 Sisters Island, Dec 05  |
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Anemone corals on Singapore shores
 Pulau Semakau, Mar 05 |
 Neat circular corallites. |
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 St. John's Island, Apr 12 |
 Polyps can retract completely. |
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 Pulau Hantu, Jan 06 |
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 Terumbu Bemban, Jun 10 |
 Bleaching. |
 Terumbu Semakau, Jun 10 |
more photos and video clips of anemone corals on Singapore shores
northern shores part 1 | part 2 | part 3
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.
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