Why o why do the majority of coral slinger still insist on calling the Indo-pacificScolymia australisby the name of a species that comes exclusively from the Middle East? I mean, it’s clear that the corals we are looking at were either collected in Australia, Indonesia or Tonga. When we had this flood of Australian brain corals we had never seen before and were still trying to sort out what was hillae, what is bowerbanki and whatever you call those weird Acan-lobo looking things, it was almost “OK” to throw out some random names as temporary placeholders. It was cute to call a coral “Acan Maxima” back when the Aussie coral hustlers were too busy unpacking and packing the treasure trove of corals from down under. It’s been three years now and we all should have collectively had the time to crack open a book that’s been around for 10 years. Sixty seconds is all it takes to turn to page 27 of the third volume of Corals of the World where you can clearly see that the realAcanthastrea maximaa) looks a lot more like aLobophylliaand b) it only comes from a narrow strip of Middle Eastern Ocean where corals haveneverbeen collected for the aquarium trade. A reef fish vendor would never take the same liberties of identifying a fish with the name of a completely different species, so why do coral pimps do it? Who knows but at this point any coral vendor that is still calling a coral by “Acan Maxima” is either lazy or woefully ignorant. The reef aquarium hobby is a civilized pastime, the information is out there, seek it.
Will the real Acan Maxima please stand up?
Jake Adams
Jake Adams has been an avid marine aquarist since the mid 90s and has worked in the retail side of the marine aquarium trade for more than ten years. He has a bachelor’s degree in Marine Science and has been the managing editor of ReefBuilders.com since 2008. Jake is interested in every facet of the marine aquarium hobby from the concepts to the technology, rare fish to exotic corals, and his interests are well documented through a very prolific career of speaking to reef clubs and marine aquarium events, and writing articles for aquarium publications across the globe. His primary interest is in corals which Jake pursues in the aquarium hobby as well as diving the coral reefs of the world.
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