For so many years, we thought we sawMontipora Capricorniseverywhere. So many people were use that name for just any about any cup-shaped or plating Monti includingM. foliosa,佛罗里达州或者M. Aequituberculata被标记为“蒙蒂帽”。您只需要搜索该名称,然后查看成千上万的错误识别出的图片即可。
It took a series of post onMontipora意识到我从未见过“真实”Montipora Capricornis。But luckily, on an Australian Diving Trip with Ultra Coral Australia, we finally got to meet the real and elusiveMontipora Capricornis。
What does it look like?
First of all, the candidate for the真实的Monti Cap appears very different to all the other Cup shape or folioseMontiporaI’ve seen in the past. It’s a lot thicker than the others and most of the colonies we saw were at least 8-10 mm thick.
Then the shape is not like all the other plating Montis, since the radius of the Cup is really big and aquarium collected specimen are actually plating, not cupping. A fully grown cup shape colony would only fit in a huge aquarium since the colony we saw with one single cup shape colony were almost a meter (3 ft) wide.
然后,即使在我们被告知的“世界珊瑚”中,颜色也可以拍摄粉红色,而且实际上是蓝色的。在15 m(45 ft)的水中,它们看起来确实是淡蓝色,甚至更深。由于它是灰色的,在水下散发出无聊的外观,而且没有任何很大的殖民地。我们花了很多潜水才能理解它是什么物种。它非常特殊的形状和纹理非常独特,因此一旦看到了一个,您就会意识到它们的区别。
Close inspection:
在Corallite层面,真实M. capricornisare immersed. Then the important detail, is that they have no papillae or tuberculae on their surface. But it doesn’t mean that its surface is flat or smooth neither. Its coenosteum is coarse, giving a pretty rough look to its surface.
Habitat:
We found this species, in this deep, slightly exposed lagoon, of the inshore reef. The same reef as the one where we found manygold chalice corals。近海礁,在潮汐中收到大量食物。基本上,所有富裕的近海水都穿过障碍礁和大障碍的内部礁石,都是第一个盛宴。此外,这种宽阔的杯形状是一个完美的粒子陷阱。
他们开始从8-10 m(25-30 ft)开始丰富,一直越过30 m(90 ft),因为水在外向的潮汐中变得肮脏,但是在传入的潮汐中很清楚,新鲜的潮汐很清楚海洋透明的水被拉入。
Aquarium Maintenance!
Considering the habitat, probably that this Montipora would do well, under medium-high lighting, and pretty good flow and a good plankton feeding would be highly beneficial to its growth. Considering the thickness of its skeleton, we wouldn’t expect it to grow very fast. But since we now know it’s out there, it’s likely that it will become more available, not only from Ultra coral Australia, but may be from other collectors.
然后,我们将在不久的将来了解其特定的水族馆需求。这是澳大利亚的另一种独特的珊瑚,并提醒人们,毕竟,来自澳大利亚的珊瑚多样性,实际上不仅仅是草莓脆饼杂技杂技杂技杂技杂货店和Micromussa –it just takes someone to go out there!