More Corals!

Continuing the feature on corals...

There are just so many nice nice corals here besides the favids (boulder corals) and the soft corals, take a look at these... (images may underestimate the beauty of these ANIMALS due to the cannot-make-it-ness of the author's photography skills though...)


Porites sp. (pore coral) - this is one of the cutest... with those small small corallites less than 1.5mm in diameter, but the coral colony can be quite BIG... like this one is about 0.5m in diameter... Those found at the lower shores can even be as massive as 1.5m in diameter (they're there! go see them!)


Porites sp. (pore coral) - another growth form here... so pretty with the algae... Liyan blogging soon? Tell us more about those algae!


Goniopora sp. - this is one of the few hard corals at the Labrador intertidal which you can actually get to see the polyps and tentacles extended... those are the living parts of the coral that build up the calcium carbonate skeleton we see! If you bother to count the tentacles, there will be 24!


Turbinaria sp. (disc coral) - this is also very pretty, with the irregular disc-shaped form... And even prettier are the extended polyps below (submerged)...


Turbinaria sp. - with polyps extended to feed when submerged!


Montipora sp. (plate coral) - very distinctive to Montipora with the laminar (plate-like) growth form... but of course there are other corals with plate-like forms ya.

One thing I like about them is that they are sessile and don't move around ya noe... so it's easier to locate them and study them... BUT BUT... they do move in one circumstance... as in they are MOVED... guess how???

Who else but some inconsiderate HUMAN BEINGS... and I really mean only some... I believe majority knows how to appreciate the corals... in its natural environment!

I've heard quite a lot of reasons (silly excuses rather...) why people poach the corals from Labrador... but this is really unbelievable:

You see there is a signboard outside that says that the rocky beach is a gazetted nature reserve...
(Source: WildSingapore website http://www.wildsingapore.com)

A poacher actually said, "The sign say cannot take crab and shell, but never say coral."

Coral = marine creatures!!!

And how about, "It says rocky beach. I never take anything from the rocks."

...????!!!!...