Id please

Wiz · Oct 11, 2015

The first pic is my branching frogspawn. The second and third were traded to me. I thought it was another color variant of the branching frog. But he insisted it was a branching hammer. Opinions?

Reefrookie220 · Oct 11, 2015

Looks like frog to me, looks like it'll eventually be the same color of yours after it acclimated to your lights.

Happened to me recently.

evolved · Oct 12, 2015

IMO, neither, but rather cristata (grape coral).

Reefrookie220 · Oct 12, 2015

evolved said:
IMO, neither, but rather cristata (grape coral).

Good call, I should have known that too.

Wiz · Oct 13, 2015

When I google cristata, it shows pics of both of these. As well as regular frogspawn.

evolved · Oct 13, 2015

Wiz said:
When I google cristata, it shows pics of both of these. As well as regular frogspawn.

Try a scientific reference: Euphyllia cristata

Wiz · Oct 13, 2015

Worse result. Even shows hammer. Must not be a big difference. The description on that link says usually pale grey or green. Which its not. Confusing

evolved · Oct 13, 2015

You can't scientifically ID a coral by color. And note it says "usually".

evolved · Oct 13, 2015

FWIW:

Wall Hammer: Euphyllia ancora
Branching Hammer: Euphyllia paradivisa
Frogspawn: Euphyllia yaeyamaensis
Wall spawn: Euphyllia divisa
Torch: Euphyllia glabrescens
Grape: Euphyllia cristata

There's a couple others too, but rarely seen in the trade: Euphyllia paraglabrescens, [URL='http://coral.aims.gov.au/factsheet.jsp?speciesCode=0498#']Euphyllia paraancora[/URL]

Wiz · Oct 13, 2015

Euphyllia is very hard to id. mine do not seem to fit any of these. If you look close at my pics you can see most of the tips have a curl to them like a hammer although not as pronounced. Then a few arms have mmultiple tips like a frog but nowhere near as many as a frog. The tentacle structure seem similar to cristata but all the examples of cristata I've seen show a straight arm with a single tip. Only identified by the change in color. The shape is round like the arm. There is no difference in shape from arm to tip.
The one thing that seems obvious to me is the two types I have posted are the same. Just different color. And do not fit the full description of any one of the common identified speciesbut have characteristics of all three.