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Coral Sclerites

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  • Coral Sclerites

    For those of you who may not know, sclerites are small boney skeletal support structures used to protect against wave action and as structural defence against predators. Typically you can see these as small, short white lines on a soft coral. Sclerites are also a good way of identifying a coral taxonomically almost like finger prints. sclerites differ from the polyps, branch surface and base so its important to sample all three to correctly identify a coral.

    These are a couple pics from coral bio lab at school where we were studying them under the microscope.

    Branch surface



    Base



    polyp




    using a taxonomic key we identified this to be from the Capnella genus, a Soft Tree Coral. http://pmeenligne.ca/madcaptains/ind..._No=2137987737
    Last edited by cichlid1409; 02-04-2011, 02:11 PM.
    25g - Reef
    3.5g - Surge Tank
    10g - Ichthyophthirius multifilis breeding colony

  • #2
    Cool!

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