Colossal Coral Colonies
除非您拥有1000多加仑的水族馆，并且正在种植一种珊瑚，那么您不太可能看到珊瑚接近这种尺寸。即使对于野生殖民地，哈尔玛氏菌的珊瑚也没有受到任何成型，并且都达到了巨大的比例。
We visited Halamahera last month on a coral spotting mission for息肉实验室, and, if you haven’t already, make sure to check out ourfirst article要了解有关印度尼西亚北部这个令人难以置信的岛屿，苏拉威西和拉贾·安帕特之间的更多信息。
Turbinaria-Tanjung Uli
Turbinaria是一种珊瑚，众所周知，发现六英尺（180万）的殖民地并不少见。但是在一个名为Tanjung Uli的潜水地点上，我们遇到了两个殖民地，它们宽度超过20英尺（6m）。我们在第一个殖民地周围呆了五分钟，在珊瑚周围游泳并拍照。
在对这个巨大的珊瑚斑点感到满意之后，我们游走了，只发现了第二个殖民地，它必须再过五英尺至少二十五英尺或（8m）宽。幸运的是我们的朋友Markus Rothwas there taking pictures and was able to capture a few pictures of me above the coral to give a better reference of size.
蒙蒂托拉 - 大猩猩基西尔
任何保持镀金的人都知道，一旦旋转，这些珊瑚就会变得不守规矩，并立即填满您的水箱的连接。在Gorango礁上，天空确实是珊瑚广泛增长的极限。
Gorango Kecil的礁石顶部，这是三个水下尖峰之一大猩猩山脊, was layer upon layer of蒙蒂托拉capricornis。这种珊瑚成长为花瓶形层，边缘略微打褶。
Along the edge of the reef we found bright green蒙蒂托拉。It was difficult to tell the species of this abundant genus of corals but thanks to some expert ID advice from Jake our guess would be a mix of蒙蒂托拉aequituberculataandM. Capricornis。
瓶刷Acropora - Tanjung Uli
While not a single colony, this stand of bottle brush form ofAcropora珊瑚不仅在大小上令人印象深刻，而且状况良好。
这些珊瑚非常细腻，稀薄的分支径向珊瑚岩非常精致，由于该礁石每年都有很少的潜水员，因此很难找到一个破碎的珊瑚岩或分支。如果是的话，罪魁祸首很可能是鱼，乌龟或其他海洋生物，可以在茂密的树枝网络之间进行房屋。
所有这些珊瑚都沿着一小块土地从岸上伸出来的礁石坡度。这些珊瑚大多数都在面对海湾西端的受保护的一侧发现。没有风暴的威胁，免受海浪的保护，也没有对潜水员的影响，这是原始的例子，说明这些珊瑚可以变大多大。
In this stand we found several different species ofAcropora, that would form large clusters, often with a few different color varieties filling out the bunch. We found all the usual bottle brush suspects,Acropora Echinata，Acropora Subglabara和Acropora Carduus。
绿星息 - 大猩猩奥伯萨
This is one of my favorite aquarium corals. It’s easy to grow and quickly fills a tank. A word of caution, plant you green star polyp on a rock, or magnetic frag plug so you can easily remove the colony should it start growing too large.
You can leave a few polyps in the tank which will continue to colonies whatever it touches. Just look at this wild colony. Bright green polyps from 20 feet (6m) deep down to 30 feet (9m). If you didn’t know this was underwater you might think it was a grassy knoll.
Wouldn’t it be cool to see an ‘imitation’ planted tank made with green star polyps and branching corals manicured to looks like tiny bonsai trees!
另一个史诗般的珊瑚是Acropora Plumosa。This coral grows horizontal branches like wings sprouting from the edge of the colony. In fact, there was so many beautifulplumosacorals we feel they deserve their own article!
Stay tuned next week for more coral spotting from Halmahera Indonesia.
Thanks to the韦达礁和雨林度假胜地为了向我们展示Halmahera和息肉实验室for sponsoring our series on corals from Indonesia.
