Common Mushroom Coral

• comportamientoUnlike most corals it is not fixed permanently to the bottom, and can shift slowly or right itself if a strong current turns it over.
• When young it lives attached to a calcareous stalk and detaches as it grows, leaving the base behind like an empty cup.
• Because it is not fixed in place, it can survive on shifting sandy bottoms where no reef-building coral would thrive.
• It is a solitary, free-living coral: a single large disc-shaped polyp that is not attached to the bottom and rests loose on the sand.
• It begins life attached by a stalk and later breaks free, a process called pedicel autotomy, after which it is left as an independent disc.
• It can move: by inflating and deflating its tissues it manages to travel slowly and, above all, to right itself if a wave flips it over, or to shed the sediment covering it.
• That ability lets it live on soft bottoms where no attached coral could, because any colony would end up buried.
• Its septa are sharp and radial, and they give it the look of an upside-down mushroom cap, which is where its name comes from.
• It is very popular in marine aquarium keeping, and collection is a local threat.

Skeleton type

Invertebrate - calcareous skeleton (coral)

Habitat & environment

Sand and rubble bottoms between Indo-Pacific reefs

Sources consulted: https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fungia_fungites