Star polyps, green star polyps, brown star polyps, whatever you call them, are one group of corals that we don’t appreciate nearly enough. Nine out of ten reefers couldn’t tell you the scientific name of this important aquarium coral, or tell you how many different species there are.
Reefers might take green star polyps for granted, but that hasn’t stopped scientist from describing a new species in the genus Briareum.brireum cylindricum是这种“息肉”珊瑚这种包裹形式的新物种，在最近的一篇论文中描述了该属的印度太平洋物种总数达到四个。
The cylinder part ofbrireum cylindricumrefers not to the appearance of the coral, but to the shape of the sclerites in its tissue, whose microscopic shape and characteristics are often used to describe octocoral species. You may not be able to see the
巩膜B. cylindricum, but the species is still readily distinguished by having a pattern of small bumps and tubercules visible on the encrusting mat between the polyps.
描述‘cylindrical’star polyps doesn’t show the living polyps ofbrireum cylindricum, but we immediately recognized the look of the small dried mat that is pictured as the holotype for the species. Countless of you reading this right now have experience fragging green star polyps and we are certain that this species has been imported into the aquarium hobby already.
Now that we know that this particular green star polyp is a new species, we’ll be keeping an eye out for it and see if the tentacles betray its identity from other species ofBriareum.The newest species of encrusting star polyps Briareum cylindricum is described from the Indo-Pacific by Smimi-Namin & van Ofwegen in the January 2016 volume ofZooKeys.
