It’s been a little bit since we reported on a Scolymia australis nice enough to be post-worthy but after a long absence, Frag Junky gets the honorable mention for their two-faced masterpiece scolymia. A “Masterpiece Scoly” is among the best of the best, incorporating features of ‘UFO Scolies’ which display a black ring and an even mix of Warpaint and Bleeding Apple Scolies – basically a Masterpiece Scolie has it all and it is the zenith of solitary LPS collection.
It’s not too hard to come across a nice color-balanced Masterpiece scoly and most high end coral dealers can offer their customers a specimen semi-regularly, for a hefty price. This is where Frag Junky’s two-face Masterpiece Scoly stands out, in essentially being a siamese twin Scolymia australis with neatly joined corallites and polyps that face different directions.
As with all stupendous specimens of unique and solitary LPS corals, there’s no practical way to propagate a coral like this, and each one is priced to reflect this fact. If a single masterpiece Scoly can fetch upwards of $700 to $1000 a piece, you can bank on the Two Face Masterpiece scolymia fetching upwards of double that, since it has two polyps to speak of.
At this rate of coral-quality advancements, it’s probably only a matter of time until we get our first look at the colonial Masterpiece Acanthastrea bowerbanki, a species which has already shown up with patterns like a UFO Scoly, and bleeding apple/warpaint scolies, but a combination thereof still eludes the reef scene, for now.
