Thread: Balanophyllia
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Unread 02/15/2010, 07:30 AM   #11
stunreefer
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Mike, that's an awesome little colony you've got there!
Quote:
Originally Posted by suta4242 View Post
He said balanos are solitary polyp species.
I've heard/read this before as well, although I have a hard time thinking L.A. D.D. would mis-label something, unless they're going off of a pre mis-ID on the CITES. Also as Mike pointed out, they can and will asexually propagate. Even the genus Rhizotrochus will do the same: http://blog.jendub.com/2007/07/02/co...zotrochus.aspx The thing that gets me is that if Balanophyllia did reproduce like this, you would expect these "colonies" to have one giant polyp (the parent) and multiple smaller one's, compared to the overall consistant polyp size we're witnessing. Perhaps there was one much larger polyp next to these that was not collected; Perhaps the "parent" grew to it's maximum size and the "budded" polyps caught up to it in size pre-collection... I'm not sure, but I am curious.
Quote:
Originally Posted by suta4242 View Post
As for dendros the distinction between them and tubastrea is usually far from clear unless your looking at a naked skeleton. Even then, the answer is not always obvious. Some obvious exceptions exist eg T. micrantha.
I couldn't agree more with this! There is this "hobby standard" of IDing Dendrophyllia vs. Tubastrea species that is just ridiculous. With that said there is a pretty general trend of the species and colors of Dendrophyllia and Tubastrea that enters the hobby which is where these assumed ID's spwan from. These corals come in many different colors and growth froms (depending on species and collection area), but we only see a handfull of the diversity.


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