String of Pearls? Kinda sus ngl.

[WheatToast]

AMOGUS?!!!
​

In all seriousness, I have had a suspicion the rare red macroalgae, String of Pearls, is not a species of Botryocladia as is the general consensus. Species of Botryocladia generally feature clusters of saccate (bladders) attached to a calcified stipe (stem) (one exception being Botryocladia skottsbergii, also known as Red bubble algae). Meanwhile, String of Pearls is composed of long chains of conjoined saccate (bladders). After a bit of digging around on WoRMS, on the family Rhodymeniaceae (which Botryocladia belongs to), I found the genus Coelarthrum, the members of whom appear to share the same morphology as String of Pearls. Take a look:

String of Pearls:


Coelarthrum:

Botryocladia:

It does not surprise me that String of Pearls has likely been misidentified for so long; after all; red macroalgae are incredibly numerous, yet similar looking. Nevertheless, I still enjoy taking the time to uncover new insights like these and share them with you all! There are just so many wonders to be found among the macroalgae!

 

[Tankkeepers]

Very interesting read and based on your finding you may be right

Logically it makes sense

 

[sixty_reefer]

Great work on the research, I’ve seen so many of them miss labelled over the years, really happy you brought this up.

 

[reddevilant]

Awesome!!! I could never find the scientific name for it because I was always looking under botryocladia species, so thank you! This is why I always just referred to it as String of Pearls even though I usually never use common names because SO MANY algae species are misidentified. Like "ogo" and "dragon's breathe" is used for I feel like more than a dozen species.

 

[Tigahboy]

That looks right to me. I hesitate to definitively ID any macroalgae TBH given how often they are mis-identified.

 

[WheatToast]

It appears that species of the genus Lomentaria (bead-weed), also somewhat resemble string of pearls, though the morphology is noticeably different. It's almost like we have an imposter among us.

 

[reddevilant]

It appears that species of the genus Lomentaria (bead-weed), also somewhat resemble string of pearls, though the morphology is noticeably different. It's almost like we have an imposter among us.

Awesome! Rather than "pearls" this one looks more like those balloons people use to make balloon animals lol

 

[Tired]

I wish we had a :/ emoji to reply to posts with.

 

[WheatToast]

I found another similar looking algae, Scinaia moniliformis, that looks very similar to String of Pearls. The bladders seem a little too elongated with this species, but I am beginning to worry that my initial indentification is incorrect since Scinaia has more reports of entering the hobby. Maybe String of Pearls refers to multiple species across different genera...

Scinaia hormoides (Moniliform sea moss):