Holy Wow, mother of all that is Reef and Holy would you take a look at this Australomussa rowleyensis, the Mother of all Mussas. We’ve long been a fan of Australomussa, especially since they began being collected from Timor Indonesia. The two-face ‘Mussa was nice too but this colony currently in the care of World Wide Corals is on another level.
Rarely in our reefing career has a coral like this jarred us to our coral-crazed core.
As we zoomed in for more careful scrutiny of this fine specimen our first look at this coral was about two minutes of confusion; the heck is that? is it a Hillae with ridik color? Is that a bleeding apple Scolymia in the center? Is this some sort of mega-mouth chalice like a cross between a Pectinia and an Echino? And then we saw it.
At the very edge of the coral you can make out in the patch of green the unique figure-eight shaped corallites that Australomussas can develop. The darker rings of color around the corallites was another clincher. Then when zooming out and applying our mental image filter to what we expect from an Australomussa it was clear that this coral is indeed the Mother of all Mussas.
This beautiful pinnacle of a ‘Mussa is gracing the display tank of World Wide Corals and our understanding is that a part of this coral will be put into propagation. Big thanks to World Wide for providing a high resolution look for us to dissect and share with you today. As of this moment, Australomussa has officialy stepped up its game and become as brilliant a coral as any other in the sea.
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