Aquarists spend the majority of their coral-keeping career looking at, staring at, and growing live corals, hopefully. This is the inverse case for coral taxonomists such as Dr. Stephen Cairns who studies the remains of corals as skeletons, and all of the features that are visible without tissue.
两种看珊瑚的方式都有话要说,坦率地说,我们更喜欢看到生物珊瑚,但是当涉及到稀有和未知的深水珊瑚时,我们将采取自己的能力。因此,当有机会在史密森尼机构收藏的石质珊瑚藏品的幕后游览时,我们跳了出来。
Our host for diving into the Smithsonian’s collection of stony coral (Scleractinia) skeletons, the largest in the world, was none other than Dr. Stephen Cairns. He is currently the curator of this collection, and the world’s foremost expert on Azooxanthellate stony corals, and an authority on Stylaster corals as well.
We knew that the visit to the world’s largest collection of stony corals would include many Azoox skeletons, most of which we’d never seen in person, and it was a real treat to be able to ask Dr. Cairns specific questions about all of them. What we didn’t expect was to see some shallow water stony corals that we’ve only seen in books or pictures.
The type specimens for two unusualAcropora包含Acropora teres和Acropora Cardenae在现实生活中看到了酷炫的凉爽。我们以前看过这两个物种的图片,但是将样品握在我们手中的信息更为信息,我们可以在这里观察到多么薄和细腻Acropora Cardenae真的是,and how smoothAcropora teresis.
我们在史密森尼(Smithsonian)发现的其他一些令人兴奋的惊喜包括目前最深的Azoox珊瑚物种之一,即Letepsammia formosissima。使Letepsammia与众不同的是,它生活在carbonate compensationdepth of 4000 to 5000 meters, so it has to fight the effects of cold water and high pressure that dissolves calcium carbonate – to combat its skeleton dissolving outrightLetepsammiahas a skeleton which is so porous that you can see through it!
Another really neat species that we were presented with isTurbinolia这是目前最小的生命石质珊瑚,长达几毫米长。有趣的是,Turbinoliais actually found in relatively shallow water in tens of meters deep, but it is so small that you wouldn’t just happen to see it living in sand without specifically looking for it.
We只要spent about two hours looking through the various cabinets holding the most diverse assemblage of stony corals anywhere in the world, but we could return and spend a week looking at each and every specimen, and we just might. Seeing such exotic coral skeletons ofJavania, Rhizotrochus, Balanophyllia and Flabellumwas pretty overwhelming, and we’d love to return to take it all in.
非常感谢Cairns博士花了一些时间向我们展示了几百个石质珊瑚骨头,并回答了我们的许多问题。请务必向下滚动并查看我们拍摄的许多珊瑚骨架的完整画廊。