Invertebrates and corals in particular, are fascinating to us higher primates (humans) particularly because they seem so alien from us. Everything about them from the way they live, the way they develop, and even the way they die (or partially die)…
Coral
Reef Raft’s 15 year old Rhodactis is more bubbly than a Bounce Shroom
Bounce Shrooms have been rising in popularity over the last few years, kicking off a full-blown craze for any kind of shrooms or corallimorphs like it. There’s no doubt that the capitol-B Bounce Shroom is the Rhodactis that started it it all,…
Maine Coral Gardens are filled with Azoox corals and marine life
When we think of the state of Maine in the Northeast United States, we tend to think of lobsters and clam chowder. But as it turns out, there’s a really rich coral reef right off the coast of this northerly…
Sinularia levi, a new species of soft coral from the Red Sea
There’s a new soft coral on the books and it’s called Sinularia levi. This new species of finger leather coral comes to us from the shallow waters of the Red Sea. Sinularia levi was described from a re-examination of S. polydactyla, the pulsing…
Crazy rainbow Acanthophyllia will knock your socks off!
We’ve seen some pretty epic Acnthophyllia meat corals in our day but a pair of insane specimens from Malaya Reef Aquatic are on a whole other level. If we had an idea of what colors and patterns constituted a top shelf for the one…
Fluorescent Friday: World Wide Corals edition
For our previous installment of Fluorescent Friday we focused in on WWC’s famous ‘Grafted’ orange and green Montipora capricornis but today, we check out some of their other bangin’ corals with a fluorescent filter. World Wide Corals is one of the undisputed global…
Red & Green Cynarina could audition to be life savers candy
I am not a big candy buff but the first thing that came to mind when I saw this awesome bicolor Cynarina is Life Savers® Candy. The even dual coloration of the ring of vessicles around this Cynarina’s mouth looks like the…
Jungles of stony coral on the shallow reefs of Raja Ampat (video)
There’s not too many places in the world where corals are so abundant and diverse that they form a veritable Jungle of living corals. Sure, many places have exceptional living coral reefs where the shallows are approaching 90 to 100%…
Abstract Zoanthid poster is a no-brainer KickStarter project
Everyone loves Zoanthids and Palythoas and we can’t think of a better subject than our beloved polyps to star in their own poster feature. We’ve seen abstracted butterflyfish in their very own poster featuring all the of the species and…
Reefbuilders Travelogue: Corals of the Dominican Republic
After spending last weekend at the Reef-A-Palooza Orlando show we decided to hop on a plane and check out some Caribbean corals in the Dominican Republic. We travelled from the capital city of Santo Domingo around the coast to Punta…