Turbinaria stellulata
Lamarck, 1816
Description: Colonies are primarily encrusting. Corallites are thick walled, conical and average 2.5 millimetres diameter.
Color: Usually brown or green but may be a wide range of other colours. The coenosteum between corallites is usually darker than the corallite walls.
Habitat: May form conspicuous dome-shaped colonies on upper reef slopes. Unlike other Turbinaria this species is seldom found in turbid waters.
Abundance: Usually uncommon.
Similar Species: Small colonies are similar to those of Turbinaria radicalis. See also T. irregularis.
Source reference: Veron (2000). Taxonomic reference: Veron and Pichon (1980). Identification guides: Veron (1986), Nishihira and Veron (1995).
The species commonly has the shape of other colonies it encrusts. Great Barrier Reef, Australia Photograph: Ed Lovell
Common corallite shape and colour. Saudi Arabia, Red Sea Photograph: Lyndon DeVantier
Typical appearance of a small encrusting colony. Great Barrier Reef, Australia Photograph: Charlie Veron
An encrusting colony. Sinai Peninsula, Egypt Photograph: Charlie Veron
Surface detail. Papua New Guinea Photograph: Charlie Veron
Skeletal detail. Colony surface.