巴厘岛水族馆刚刚出现了印度尼西亚的绿色苹果菌株Acropora spathulata。去年在印度尼西亚中部进行了收集旅行后,从印度尼西亚发现的该物种的第一个殖民地收集了三个碎片。这个殖民地几乎跨过三英尺,已经恢复了,显示了初始抽样的最小迹象。
After a year of growing these frags in their ocean farm, these first culturedAcropora spathulatafrom Bali Aquarium are now over a foot high and wide. They are now big enough to be broodstock colonies to produce the first truly sustainable Acropora spathulata in the aquarium trade.
The large size and wild origin of AustralianA. spathulatahas proven challenging for some reefers to keep and grow, so hopefully the cultured Indonesian Spathulata colonies will potentially fare much better. Furthermore, Australian Spathulata from the wild is commonly infested with Acro Eating Flatworms, while AEFWs are rarely seen in Indonesian Acros.
Acropora spathulatais a little bit like an Acro Milli on steroids. They really look like our iconic millies with their scalloped radial corallites but with branches almost twice as thick as the classicAcropora millepora。The particularity of this species is to have radial corallite that join together to form a chain-mail pattern by groups of 3-5 corallites and sometime more.
This characteristic feature is unique to this species, and this is what differentiate them from their very close look alike relativeAcropora Asperaat the size of a frag. If corallites of all these species have slight differences, it’s mainly the thickness of the branches that differentiate them, withA. Millepora有最瘦的树枝,A. prostatabeing a little bit thicker, a more prominent axial coralite and thicker, more packed radial coralites,A. spathulatais a lot thicker with chains of radial corallites.
印度尼西亚在世界上拥有最高的珊瑚色多样性,而苏拉维西的Tominy Bay的震中,在Acropora物种方面仍然有很多惊喜。现在,随着收藏家在印尼生物多样性边界的达尔文探索,印尼收藏家向东移动,将在我们的爱好中带来一大堆新颖性。
这些殖民地的巨大尺寸和前往这些偏远收集区的长途旅行使得带来整个殖民地,甚至是它们作为野生收获的珊瑚的运输,这是不现实的。但是,将碎片带回巴厘岛或其他地方培养了一个新的维度和一个全新的收藏基础。毫无疑问,来自Bali Aquarium这只是印尼珊瑚店里更多惊喜中的最新消息。