Purple Hornets or no?

[elegant_reefer]

Saw these on a site for $70 for 3-5 polyps, they called them Purple Hornets. What do you think.

 

[Ian]

nope...

 

[m and m]

Deff not

 

[xmjxflipx]

here if u want to bid on some.....these are from jared butler aka caddisfly.

Purple Hornet Zoanthids Live Coral WYSIWYG - eBay (item 140352270916 end time Oct-20-09 19:27:56 PDT)

 

[elegant_reefer]

here if u want to bid on some.....these are from jared butler aka caddisfly.

Purple Hornet Zoanthids Live Coral WYSIWYG - eBay (item 140352270916 end time Oct-20-09 19:27:56 PDT)

I would never pay that much for any coral that small, unless its EXTREMELY colorful .

 

[xmjxflipx]

u mean like the devils aura zoanthids LOL

 

[MikeB]

No no no no

 

[650-IS350]

Those are japanese zoanthids ( deep waters ),

as a marketing tactic some people put the hornet name on those to gain more interest. some also put the coined names
Purple honet II, Purple hornet next gen, etc. etc. But before it was named a 100 different names, it came in originally as a Japanese Deepwater zoanthid.

 

[Reefinginpasadena]

Those look like the deep water zoas called LA laker zoas.

 

[Liz ZoaGirl]

they're also called "Japanese Hornets" ...

 

[Nanofins]

What they said. Those look best under actinics. Not a bad zoa, but they won't look that hot under daylights.

 

[mfinn]

They are some really nice Japanese deepwaters.
I picked up a really nice colony from Cherry Corals. They called them Blue Thunders.

 

[Stray32]

"They're called _____ , no wait, they're called ______ . But I bought these sames ones as ______ . These were originally called ______ ."

.... seems to be a tragic pattern of deception and misrepresentation going on... but I digress

 

[Wy Renegade]

"They're called _____ , no wait, they're called ______ . But I bought these sames ones as ______ . These were originally called ______ ."

.... seems to be a tragic pattern of deception and misrepresentation going on... but I digress

LOL; don't know if it is truly deception, most are simply trying to get attention so they can make an extra buck. Its what happens when there is no official standard for naming, and yet named zoas sell for higher prices; so everyone now names their Zoa whatever they feel like, and pretty soon you have the exact same zoa being sold under 20 different names.

Realize that Whole sellers buy zoas/palys in large quantities or colonies for minimal prices and then sell them off in smaller frags or by the polyp. Look at RDE as an example; when they first hit the market and were named, they were fairly hard to come by. Now walk into almost any LFS and you'll see a large colony (100+) polyps of mixed RDE/WW selling for $30.00. So long as hobbiests are willing to pay the money, the trade will continue. The "deepwaters" were no exception, the original large colonies were quickly bought up, fragged out and sold at a profit. And the trend continues.

 

[650-IS350]

to get straight to the point.

Those are japanese zoanthids ( deep waters ),

 

[myreef2reef]

So how does the zoas in question here different from the real Purple Hornets?

 

[jaytizzle]

I think I read something on here awhile back that they can't actually be Japanese. Something about you can't collect off of Japan and that they are actually Indo or something else and they just put Japanese on them as a "name" to help them sell for more???

 

[RandyO Verified Sponsor]

So how does the zoas in question here different from the real Purple Hornets?

Real Purple hornets tentacals alternate color. One yellow, then one purple, every other one.

The ones in question are not hornets. They look like the LA Lakers to me.

LA Lakers zoanthid

 

[Nanofins]

So long as hobbiests are willing to pay the money, the trade will continue.

This is true, and a good thing, IMO. It is this initial payoff that will continue to motivate collectors and importers to search for new and ever nicer corals to introduce to the hobby. Everyone benefits. The people introducing these corals to the hobby MUST have a payoff for their efforts, or they won't be willing/able to continue. In the end the coras drop in price and become obtainable for most everybody. It is the state of our hobby and the industry that we can now almost count on any new introduction to survive, grow, get propagated, and be distributed to ever-widening circles until they are bread-and-butter. Nothing to complain about, IMO.

However, in this case, calling them purple hornets is at least bordering on misrepresentation, and only encouraging confusion.

 

[myreef2reef]

Thanks for the clarification on the differences between the Purple Hornets and the zoas in question here. Now I know what to look for so I won't get scammed.