In celebration of our 500th blog post, in what we hope will become a bi-monthly feature, we bring you the first instalment in our ‘coral spotlight’ series which examines the natural habitat and captive care of selected groups of Anthozoans. Currently containing 13 distinct genera, the Fungiidae is a fascinating family of corals both in terms of appearance and behaviour. Commonly known as plate, disc or mushroom corals (not to be confused with Corallimorph ‘mushroom anemones’), species from the Fungia, Cycloseris, Heliofungia and Herpolithia genera are the most commonly encountered Fungiids in the trade, and they generally all share the same habits and ecology. Found over much of the West Indo-Pacific region, these Large-polyp Stony (LPS) corals naturally reside in shallow lagoon or reef environments where they occupy a benthic location usually on sand or gravel substrates, sometimes in turbid waters. Here they live out their lives fuelled by photosynthetic Zooxanthellae within their tissues, and by direct capture of zooplankton. These corals are both interesting and unusual in that they can move around slowly by inflating their tissues, and they can even excavate themselves if buried by substrate
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