The Mother of all Cynarina lacrymalis found on the Great Barrier Reef

The mother of all Cynarina lacrymalis is a true unique coral gem.

Ania Nerowski, our own Australian-based coral nerd, has reported to us a fantastic coral that showed up in Australia.

Here is a close-up of a polyp, separating into several polyps.

Cynarina lacrymalis, the Button Coral, is normally a solitary, monocentric, one polyp, one mouth coral. Double or triple heads sometimes show up, but we’ve never seen one like this crazy one before, with so many heads. With more than half a dozen different polyp mouths composing this unique coral, it’s an official record! As the previous was half a dozen on a brown Indonesian specimen.

7 different polyps compose this unique button coral colony.

The bright orange/red brick coloration is perfect, making this coral a truly unique gem. The skeleton length is 13 cm (5 inches) across the base. The base to the top is 9cm (3.5 inches) in height. It has 7 mouths interconnected in a maze-like shape. Which makes it a colony composed of quite small Cynarina lacrymalis polyps. To the point that people got confused and thought it was a particular type of Symphyllia sp (Lobophyllia sp) – something never seen before. The reason why this monocentric polyp develops a colony in very rare cases is not yet understood.

This button coral colony is just so meaty and juicy!

Ania managed to get quite a bit of information. It was collected on the northern GBR at Melaine patches 6 NM NE of Cape Melville. It was found on an Isolated rock. The depth was 16m (48′), on a turbid, dirty bottom with less than 4m of visibility. This means there was a a lot of food available. It was obviously the stand-out piece for the entire dive with not much else collected. Other corals present nearby were large gorgonians, soft corals, and Tubastrea, with lots of Coral Trout swimming around.

We didn’t get all the information, but we think it was attached to a rock, the same as all Cynarina lacrymalis, and that somewhere differentiates them from Indophyllia macassarensis.

Aquamarine Aquaristic said it is destined to be displayed and will be available for purchase to the right buyer at our own Reef Builders, Reefstock Australia 2023 in Sydney!!!! Start saving!

A close up of 3 different polyps growing on top of each other.

Thank you very much, Ania, from Gallery Aquatica for keeping an eye on these real gems for us!

Vincent Chalias

Vincent is a coral passionate aquarist with extensive experience in the industry, travelling the world to learn about corals. His background is a master degree in Marine Aquaculture. He set up the first Indonesian Coral mariculture farms at the beginning of the century and spent over 20 years in Indonesia running them. He's been extensively diving and documenting corals all over the Indo-Pacific.