"The seas around Malaysia is home to some 3,000 species of fish, 1.000 of species of bivalves and 500 species of reef-building coral. The diversity of marine fauna of the Indo-Pacific region far exceeds that even of other tropical regions."
Daisy coral (Tubastrea sp.)
This species is a common 'ahermtypic' (asexual) hard coral with bright yellow polyps. It prefers sheltered and overcast areas and thus, normally found on nooks and crevices of coral boulders. Its coral polyps with their tentacles extended from their skeleton are normally open at night to capture plankton as food.
The sea fan are easily recognised by their fan-like shape and are often brightly coloured (red, purple and yellow), although some come in shades of grey. Normally found in the deeper areas with low light intensity, they are filter feeders and hence the orientation of their fans are perpendicular to the current to allow their polyps maximum exposure to the food source. They can grow to quite a large size of more than 1 metre tall.
Brain coral (Symphillia sp.)
The brain coral resembling the human brain is not a particularly common coral and can be found on upper reef slopes. Visually, this species can be identified by the lateral fusion between adjacent lateral walls. The corallum is covered by slightly fleshy tissue that is usually brown, green or white. Small mouths are visible in the valleys and tentacles are generally retracted during the day.
The feather starfish use this arms to filter the food from the passing currents and then pass it down to there mouth. Very different from the traditional starfish that feeds from the bottom and moves along the ground to feed. The feather star has “feet” called cirri that is uses to append itself to fan coral, or other perches where it can feed from a nice passing current.
They also have many more then the traditional 5 arms associated with a starfish. The amount of arms depend on the species and health of the starfish, most species have around 20 arms while some can have over 200. These arms are covered with a sticky substance which it uses to help catch the passing food and pass it down the stars mouth. It is important not to handle these stars as you can severely disrupt their feeding if they are man-handled.
What eats these starfish, well most fish leave them alone. Maybe they are too peaceful, beautiful or graceful to eat?
They breed by releasing sperm and eggs into the surrounding water. The eggs hatch to produce a larva that after a few days float down to the ocean floor or reef where it undergoes a metamorphosis to the adult form.
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