Torchspawn, Frammer, Hamspawn and many others are colloquial names for the many different ways that Euphyllia corals are known to hybridize and interbreed. Some of these are quite remarkable in their appearance that blurs the lines between both parent species, but many others bare only minimal signs of having a mixed pedigree.
In the past we have made much fan fare over some of these colonies, especially when they straddled the line between a hammer and a frogspawn coral, or a frogspawn and a torch coral, both branching and wall forms. However in recent years we’ve noticed that – with the shear number of Euphyllia in the aquarium hobby – there’s a wide range of genetic exchange between the species, and there’s a whole spectrum of forms and varieties of so-called hybrids.
Crazy Hybrid Hammer x Frogspawn Coral Discovered in Bali Indonesia
Over the years we’ve collected a number of subtly interesting Euphyllia strains that don’t fit the clear cut definitions of a hammer, frogspawn or torch coral. Now that they are looking their best, bigger than single head frags, and enjoying a nice boost of lighting intensity, it’s well time that we shared some of these collector’s Euphyllia with you.
Below you can see two different hybrid corals, one is a nice illustration of a typical ‘frammer’ coral with beautiful light orange base color, and neon green branching tips. The other is a typical kind of hybrid which without any popping colors, doesn’t get the extra scrutiny required to notice that it’s not exactly a branching frogspawn, but not exactly a branching torch coral either.
Next we have two examples of torch corals, the first one being the high profile and very recognizable classic Australian bright gold torch, with all its individually tipped tentacles. The other ‘torch’ coral is clearly cut from the same cloth with big fat tentacle tips, but about half the tentacles have more than one tip, these are all reduced insize compared to the primary tip, and lastly the coral is greenish overall, a very unusual color for Australian Euphyllia glabrescens.
Last but not east is our favorite example of a hybrid Euphyllia, a mustard olive green frogspawn hybrid coral, pictured alongside a good classic branching orange frogspawn coral. This is a very special and rarely seen color form that we’ve been growing since it was just a sliver of a frag, and now is just around the corner from being fragged itself; it’s also the same coral as pictured in the header image at the top of the page.
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