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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 Aug 08 Where seen? This hard coral with long-bodied polyps is commonly seen on many of our reefs, including those on our Northern shores. Features: Colonies 10-12cm, often boulder-shaped or clusters of short, fat columns with rounded tops. The polyps may be large (0.5-1cm in diameter). 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 circular corallites that are neatly packed next to one another. Colours seen include purple, pink, brown and bluish. Sometimes 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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 Pulau Hantu, Jan 06 |
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more photos 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
*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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