'Blue' and pink corals -Reply and suggestion......

[Jan Korrubel]

On the blue coral issue, Yusef Fadlalla <yfadlal at kfupm.edu.sa> had
this to say:

In the Gulf (Saudi Arabia) we at first (many years ago) thought that
a species of Porites (cf compressa) had no less than five different
color morphs, including blue and pink.  We are now certain that these
colors appear under stressing conditions (extreme cold or warm
waters).

>> OK - I can extend my knowledge to encompass _some_ of the instances
of the blue corals I saw to believe in tissue colouration (there
certainly seems to be signs of bleaching going on or recently having
taken place in the Sodwana Bay area).   This is why I initially asked
for more information as some of the _Montipora_ colonies I saw
exhibited (light) blue polyps when fully extended.  But only some of
the instances - others were just 'too blue'....how come it's never
been seen before?
>> Also, w.r.t. the pink colouration - when I say pink, I mean PINK. 
Jeez, it was lumo-deluxe.  I have never seen anything like it in
nature.  The _Porites_ colonies didn't seem to be too affected by it. 
I am therefore also not (yet) convinced by James Cervino's suggestion
of Ring Disease.

>> Anybody else that made reports of strange colourations take any
photos at the time??  We sure did, but I can't comment on how the pics
turned out as yet as I haven't seen the results (keeping my fingers
crossed).  Perhaps we can setup a common "bulletin board" to check out
each others pics....???  How's about a page at the CHAMP site or a
page at Harry McCarty and Esther Peters' Coral Disease Site at
<http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/mccarty_and_peters/coraldis.htm>.

Cheers,

Jan Korrubel
Michael Samways

Invertebrate Conservation Research Centre
University of Natal
South Africa.