[GreenLincoln]

I'm going to post 4 pics here separately (still can't figure out how to do multiple pic posts). Can anyone please help with an educated guess on the species of these 4 frags? Any help is greatly appreciated. Thanks.

[GreenLincoln]

Here's #2:

[GreenLincoln]

Here's No. 3:

[GreenLincoln]

And finally, #4. Thanks for your help.

[reefhead]

what you have there are acroporas.

Its damm near impossible to id these unless they are dead.

here is a post by Eric Bornemen at reefcentral.com about the ID of Acroporas.

"I appreciate your guessing, but it may be doing the person more harm than good to guess like this. If you want to try and speciate a living coral based on a photograph, I will ask that you do so using a valid taxonomic reference and terminology to support your guess. I would like to keep the quality of the information here to a maximum.

Martyn, dome shaped corallites....

radial or axial?
first, dome-shaped is not commonly used as a term in describing Acropora corallites. Tubular, round, oblique, appressed, dimidiate, nariform, elongate, labellate, cochleariform, conical and immersed are used to describe radial corallites

Coenosteum can be described by it beings costate, having spinule development (reticulate, forked, elaborate, simple, meandroid)

"Cleaned skeletons of juveniles (less than two years old) are more difficult than adult colonies to identify in the laboaratory, mostly because there is insufficient colony form, corallite number and coenosteal material to give an overall impression of the features used for identification..(two year olds).. may be able to be recognized by someone familiar with adults in the field. " (Wallace 1999)

Jabrams - on what basis are you suggesting in it A. horrida? The horrida group is described as simple tubular corallites with round openings, evenly sized, coenosteum bearing simple to moderately elaborate spinules, with parts of coensoteum fused and solid. Colonies have plastic growth forms ranging from open arborescent through hispidose to irregular caespitose (sometimes within a single colony) and have indeterminate growth. You going to tell me you can see the coenosteum in the picture? ;-) The radial corallites clearly don't fit this description, and the growth form is completely unknown by the picture. That's just for the group..want me to describe the species now? LOL

Karim: A chesterfieldensis: corymbose, caespitose or caespito-corymbose - branchlets terete, 7-10mm in diameter and up to 30mm long , determinate or semi-determinate growth (unknown from picture). Axial corallite diameter 1-3mm; inner diameter .7-1mm, primary septa up to 1/2 radius, secondary septa to 1/4 radius, radial corallites regularly arranged and spaced evenly sized and distributed, mostly touching, appressed tubular with round to slightly nariform openings, primary septa present up to 1/4 radius, secondary septa absent or visible as points, dense elaborate coensoteal spinules throughout.

Can you see these determining characterisitcs in the picture? No. Are the descriptions for the corallites even accurate in your post to what they are in A. chesterfieldensis? No.

I'm not trying to be mean here, but I want everyone to see what a difficult to impossible task this is, and with what reckless abandon aquarists so easily throw species names to some of the MOST difficult genera to speciate, like Acropora, Montipora, etc."


__________________
Eric Borneman




you see what I mean!

Joe