If there is a group of coral, where we find ourselves struggling to properly identify to the species level, that’sMontipora!
Montiporaare probably the most popular coral right afterAcropora, it’s a fast growing, very colorful group of SPS coral. We thought that it deserves a little bit more understanding and proper identification. So we tried to simplify its description, and keep it to the important facts.
正如维隆所说Montiporastem from the large number of species and the presence of several groups of similar species. Otherwise the genus does not deserve its taxonomic reputation; it has a wide range of useful, it not always conservative, skeletal characters.’ Well to the common coral taxonomist, it might look easy, but for the common reefer, that is not equipped with a microscope it’s a little bit more complicated.
这就是为什么我们决定在Montipora上制作意甲,以及Veron用来对它们进行分类的12个小组的原因。
First of all, what Veron means, is that there are skeleton surface characters that make species identification some kind of easy, so even though we don’t have a microscope, a dead piece of coral… often a good macro shot allows to spot these characters.
What are these Montipora characters?
Tuberculae:
This surface growth elaborations are bigger than a corallite.Sometime these structure are fused into ridges. The very large dome-shaped ‘tuberculae’ are called ‘verrucae’.
Papillae
These growth character are smaller than a corallite. And often surround the corallite, and in this case, they are called thecale.
将冠状石浸入表面凝结物中,要么位于凹陷等漏斗的底部。
Then after there are 6 different classic growth form:
Plate-like or laminar, columnar, sub-massive, massive or encrusting, branching and encrusting.
Once you get the growth form, you just need to look at papillae, and tuberculae, then you know what group they are. Just need to compare among the few species of the group.
只有一个珊瑚属,可以与蒙蒂托拉(Montipora)混淆,它是波利斯(Porites)。但是Porites的骨骼较密集,带有小柱,因此息肉中心充满了材料,当时它在Montipora中是空心的。表面在玻璃体中也更平滑,具有较大的包装息肉。
After this short introduction, we will view the 12 different groups in a set of 6 posts. Hopefully this will series will both ease identification and reduce confusion as well as increase appreciation in this amazing group of SPS corals.