GreshamH":1p6ib6sj said:
I think my thought on the subject is quite clear even if I used "a couple" rather loosely
Color in corals has pretty much nothing to do with if it's a separate species or not. The skeletons I've seen all look as described and none of shown any obvious differences from the others.
you'd be amazed at how much differently a coral can calcify in a tank as opposed to in the wild. heck, even from tank to tank corals calcify so differently.
i have the privilege of living very near eric borneman. he's part founder of my local reef club, and obviously written many books, etc. anyways, he and i have gone on in great lengthy discussions about the different growth patters among the same species of corals, especially in sps corals. in the wild, they obviously grow naturally, and are somewhat identifiable. once they enter into an aquarium, their growth patterns change to keep up with their new environment. there are many books out there that show pictures of these different growth forms among same species. it's amazing really.
another point he did bring up was the fact that it's never 100% possible to identify a coral down to the species level unless you DNA test, and even that is hard since all the species have not been processed. the only corals you can, 100% sure, id down to the species level is from a genus that only houses one species.
basically what i'm getting at is that, in the hobby many companies/retailers/collectors try to identify corals, but they are often times wrong in their id. the store i work at receieved a few corals that the wholesaler listed by species. i set to work id'ing them and they weren't even close. and to cover my basis here, these corals were maricultured in the ocean and they were new arrivals, so they didn't have time to alter their growth to the aquarium life.
a little off topic, i know, but since gresham did bring up skeletons i figured i'd chime in on it.
if any of you guys have a list of the other duncan species, i'd love to see it.
