Orange Montastrea cavernosa recruits?

EricHugo at aol.com EricHugo at aol.com
Wed Jul 26 10:52:07 EDT 2000


<<Have you ever witnessed fluorescence in non-symbiotic corals and anemones 
such as Tubastrea?  I'm interested to know if this is a symbiont-related 
phenomena.
>>

No.  It seems only to occur in zooxanthellate cnidarians.  I would have 
thought that if any azooxanthellate coral would fluoresce, it would be a 
Dendronepthya sp. or Scleronepthya sp., but they do not.  Tubastraea spp. are 
not fluorescent, either, that I recall - is T. micrantha?  I seem to recall 
it may have been.    Nor are hydrocorals Distichopora sp. or Stylaster sp. 
for hydrocorals.  Come to think of it, I have not seen it in Millepora spp.   
The azooxanthellate corals do not typically fare well in aquaria, but I have 
kept (or attempted to keep) various azooxanthellate gorgonians, 
Chironephthya, and the aforementioned genera and none of these has displayed 
fluorescence.  Yet, other symbiotic Nephtheids do. Interersting sidebar is 
that I don't see fluorescence in zooxanthellate gorgonians, except in 
Erythropodium sp..  Maybe Mike Kirda, Julian Sprung, Charles Delbeek, or Paul 
Auger could make some additions here if they have noticed otherwise.

In addition to Paul's comments, I would add that other Mussidae like Cynarina 
and Scolymia display red and orange fluroescence, as does Echinophyllia (and  
blue!) and Mycedium.   

Eric Borneman



More information about the Coral-list-old mailing list