Size: upto 25 cm.

 

Key Features: Usually grey or brown. Colonies are flat laminae often forming overlapping tiers. They are sometimes columnar. They may be several metres across. Corallites are immersed to tubular and average 6 millimetres diameter. Polyps are large and tentacles are usually extended during the day.

 

Diet: Plankton, Zooxanthellae / Light

 

Habitat: occurs shallow on sandy reef flats and deep sandy reef bases. It forms plates of over 1 m. T. peltata is commonly found from 9-20 m, rarely from 3-5 m, in the South China Sea and Gulf of Siam (Titlyanov and Titlyanova 2002). This species is found from 0.5-25 m.

 

Conservation status: Vulnerable on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.

 

 

 

 

 

References:

IUCN Red List. http://www.iucnredlist.org/details/133498/0

 

Turbinaria peltata. In Australian Institute of Marine Science. Retrieved on June 18, 2014 from http://coral.aims.gov.au/factsheet.jsp?speciesCode=0356

 

Turbinaria peltata. In Reeflex , the Marine Aquarium Encyclopedia. Retrieved on June 18, 2014 from http://www.reeflex.net/tiere/626_Turbinaria_peltata.htm

 

Integrated Coastal Zone Management (ICZM) Project, Second Interim Progress Report, GEER Foundation, June 2012

 

 

Photo Courtesy

Charlie Veron. Australian Institute of Marine  Science. Licensed under CC BY-NC 3.0 via Creative Commons