Zoa, paly or protopaly?

[Trekka]

Hi, new to the forum and this is my first post. This was sold to me as a zoa, but after reading some stuff today, I'm leaning more towards a protopaly. Utter chaos protopaly?

 

[Tavero]

Utter Chaos is a palythoa in my opinion. At least it has every characteristic of a palythoa. (Large head, big mouth, has feeding response, adsorbs sand and other media into tissue)

 

[Trekka]

Thank you!

 

[encrustingacro]

Zoanthus, not Palythoa. Palythoa have a rough mesoglea due to incorporating sediment into their flesh, have thinner tentacles, and have capitulary ridges.

 

[littlebigreef]

Zoanthus, not Palythoa. Palythoa have a rough mesoglea due to incorporating sediment into their flesh, have thinner tentacles, and have capitulary ridges.

Agreed. Size isn't the determining factor. Compare the tissue of a captain America against an utter chaos or other large polyped zoanthid and its easy to see the difference.

IME this is one of those causal round edges in the hobby where the term paly or zoa is thrown around interchangeably but there is a difference.