虽然在夸贾林环礁（Kwajalein Atoll）的海洋一侧进行深入潜水时，我们与一对圣杯珊瑚面对面，带有醒目的外观，这与我们在水族馆或野外所见过的任何人都不一样。这些一个突出的中央珊瑚岩和骨质外观以大而突出的隔膜为主，这一和两只眼睛的夜间质量非常独特，彩色标本在下颌下降。
在四英寸和三英寸之间，两个邪恶的眼睛的呼唤确实不符合任何已知物种的描述Oxypora或者Echinomorpha但这似乎确实适合最近描述的物种Echinophyllia tarae.While that new species was described from the Gambier Islands, our specimens were discovered over 4500 miles away, in the Marshall Islands.
At 110 feet deep, the color of the visible light is noticeably attenuated to the blue end of the spectrum, giving the habitat a natural actinic color making all fluorescent colors pop. The first of these bony chalices was nearly black and white, but the second specimen sighted only 20 feet from the first one had a single central corallite and a brilliant red coloration dominating the entire corallite.
The red color was so dominant in this latter specimen that it took some extreme white-balancing to make the image come out true to life, and leaving only the oral disc shining a brilliant ruby red. If you’re a diehard coral collector, a brilliant color of a newly described species is about as rare as it gets – it was truly a treat to enjoy these two corals in their natural environment.
