Mushroom Corals

Meet the aliens of the hard coral world! Like strange, underwater fungi, mushroom corals are usually roundish with a mushroom-like appearance, but they can also be long and slipper-shaped. Yet these odd creatures are even more bizarre than they look! Unlike most hard corals, which are colonies made up of a multitude of tiny animals called coral polyps, most mushroom corals are single, solitary, humongous polyps that have grown to the size of an entire colony! Imagine a giant monster the size of a HDB block!

But the weirdness doesn't end there. Like real mushrooms, young mushroom corals have a stalk, which anchors them onto the coral reef or rocky surface. However, when they grow up, some mushroom coral species break away from their stalks and become free-living adults lying unattached to the surfaces they were once bound to. The craziest part? These free-living corals can actually move! However, as they move super slowly by inflating and deflating their bodies, please do not relocate, rotate or flip mushroom corals, as it may take them very long to shift back into a favourable position!