Scleractinian Hard Corals are what most snorkellers and scuba divers understand as “corals”. They make up the solid structure of the reefs of Koh Phangan. Providing a fabulous variety of shapes and sizes of calcium carbonate exoskeletons.
Staghorn and Table corals from the genus Acropora, plus the Alveopora, Astreopora and Montipora hard corals. (6 Galleries)
Reef building hard corals - often with laminar or foliate structures.
Crater, Cup, Stony and Turbinaria Hard Corals. Many feature quite large flower-like corallum when feeding. (4 Galleries)
We used to call this Star Coral, as during the day its corallum are retracted and it looks like a massive network of small pinky-red stars.
Originally only the Bean or Bubble Corals - now we have Starburst Corals as well! (2 Galleries)
Most members of this family are not anchored to the substrate and do look quite like mushrooms. (4 Galleries)
A newly created family of large polyped hard corals that includes the brain corals. (1 Album, 2 Galleries)
Another newly created family, containing quite a few ex-members of the Faviidae (a family now restricted to the Atlantic following genetic research). (7 Galleries)
Wrongly listed at first in the Euphylliidae Bean/Bubble Corals.
Identified by the presence of wart-like growths on their surface and a brush like appearance when feeding. Branching in structure.
3 apparently different reef forming hard corals. One with a massive structure and small corallum - the other relatively small but with greatly extended corallum. (3 Galleries)
Some individual species of hard coral that are not members of the larger families listed above.
Some nice reef views featuring a mixture of hard corals.
Marine Life Directory
