Is it really possible to answer Question 2?

[Anonymous]

For me, the quality of the photograph is pretty poor. I can only guess that the growth form is encrusting of sub-massive, but it could be anything else and we only see part of the colony.

The focus is not good enough to see anyhting about the columella and I can't even be sure I can see the septa - although the costa seem obvious.

Without this information I find myself going down multiple paths but the end point has some characteristic that does not match. I have just spent the last 4 hours going around in circles on this. Time I could have spent finishing the reading and perhaps learning something.

 

[Anonymous]

Hey Andrew,
Thank goodness someone else has had the same problem. I thought I was go mad. I even got up in the middle of the night to clarrify my answer but still came up with two because of the same features you mentioned.
Tehlia.

 

[Anonymous]

Hi again:

I have gotten a couple emails from you guys now regarding the difficulty of question 2. While I didn't look at the uploaded picture, the new one is posted, and it is clear enough to get the answer.

Now, insofar as the difficulty from this point, I am giving you guys an extra day to turn in your quiz...but this question shoud be difficult, because it is very difficult to tell what a coral is by looking at it...especially when it is not a commonly seen one in the aquarium trade (and often even when it is). I wasn't about to give you guys a coral picture that you knew what it was by years of seeing it in the LFS. You should have expereince with having to look carefully at what features are at all apparent and then analyze it to determine, if possible, what the genus is...and this is only genus. You then get a very clear idea of the relative impossibility to do species in young living corals for most cases.

Even if you get it wrong, you still learned a lot, I am sure.

Ironically, the person who found question 2 very difficult also got it right. ;-)

Eric

 

[Anonymous]

Oh, and Andrew, your analysis of its growth form and attached nature is correct.

 

[Anonymous]

Hi guys - i didn't take a look at the quality after conversion to pdf....But, the image is exceptionally clear in the original...I guess I'll send the photo to james for you guys to see as a downloadable jpg.

Its on its way now

eric

 

[Anonymous]

And, there is enough information in the picture to get this right...one final point, not every characteristic of a key number has to match, although I am sure that is obvious by reading the key descriptions where is gives variations, ranges, and uses the word "or"....

eric

 

[Anonymous]

Well, I'm glad I wasn't the only one to have difficulty with question 2. I spent about four hours (maybe more!) working on it. It is extremely difficult working with subjective terms like "widely spaced" or "columella absent or weak". I think Eric was just giving us a little taste of the grief that is the life of coral taxonomists!