Unomia是一个全新的Xeniid软珊瑚属，是为了对所有水族馆软珊瑚中最常见的一种，即Xenia Elongata. The entire group of Xeniid soft corals that includesXenia，cespitularia，Felflatournaria和others have been really hard to pin down to the genus level and just when the hobby starts to makes sense of them, soft coral taxonomists go ahead and introduce entirely new genera such asOvabunda,Conglomeratusclera和Caementabunda。
The taxonomy of these very delicate tissued soft corals is very challenging but the newly mintedUnomiafor one of the most recognizable corals in the hobby might help us differentiate it from more typicalXeniastrains. The fast growing ‘Xenia elongata’ now known asUnomia Stoloniferais so wildly prolific that it has been considered for use in ‘xenia reactors’ to directly absorb dissolved organic matter and export nutrients when they are removed.
Most soft corals are described and classified based on the microscopic sclerites within their tissues and to a lesser degree on the overall colony morphology, and in the case of Unomia we have a nice tell-tale distinguishing feature that makes ‘X. elongata’ not aXenia. Anyone who has grown this coral which is now known asUnomia Stolonifera, unlike other good card-carrying Xenia this elongated species features ungrouped polyps growing lower down the stalk instead of being tightly grouped into a region called the polypary.
Where a typical classicXeniahas all of the polyps tightly grouped at the ‘end’ of a stalk, the branching morphology ofUnomiais more similar to the growth form ofCespitularia在整个殖民地的大部分地区都发现了息肉，并且可以轻松地看到这一点Unomia Stoloniferawhich is widely known as ‘Xenia elongata’ in the aquarium hobby. Interestingly, the type material forUnomia Stoloniferawasn’t collected from the Indo-Pacific but was instead sampled from the侵入性标本在Caribbean reefs of Venezuela!
ButUnomia Stoloniferais not alone in the new genus as a second species known asUnomia complanata也从日本和台湾描述了。这些来自西太平洋的异型软珊瑚生长在较小的较小间隔的茎中，这些茎几乎不会产生那么多的“细长”外观，因此complanata的种类，这意味着Genrealliallially的意思是“扁平”。越来越多的软珊瑚属属于跟踪，可能会使水族馆的识别更具挑战性，但它有助于阐明使这些软珊瑚彼此不同的原因，以及它们如何在水族馆和野外进行比较。[[ZooTaxa]
