ID please, extinct in the wild?

[Chrisz]

Cant remember what this is, I need to start writing stuff down. The LFS told me it grew around some island and there are no more of these in the wild. Is he pulling my leg? The coral to the left of the green thing, under normal lights the coral is green.

 

[KLR]

It looks like a spaghetti leather coral to me:
spaghetti leather coral - Google Search

I am not 100% sure though.

 

[dakotasreef]

Nepthea? There is the neon green palau nepthea. I heard a similar story. Is it neon green? It should glow under actinic like crazy if it is.

 

[KLR]

Nepthea? There is the neon green palau nepthea. I heard a similar story. Is it neon green? It should glow under actinic like crazy if it is.

Was my second guess^


After google surfing I came across this leather, green sinularius, which is "said" to be extinct due to pollution in its natural environment.

 

[Chrisz]

Yes it is green, it grows like a weed. The name sounds right, is the story true?

 

[Lateral72]

Whoops thought we were talking about the algae.

 

[dakotasreef]

To be honest, I don't know. If it's the same as mine it's amazing. Just google neon green palau nepthea and see if that's what you have.

Great find if you did.

 

[Chrisz]

I was also wondering about the algae anyway

 

[donfishy]

The algae is called Neomeris.

The coral looks like regular old green finger leather, which is not the same as the Palau green Nephthea. Pic looks like a Sinularia to me, aka finger leather, similar, but different genera from the Palau Nephthea.

 

[donfishy]

Green Finger leather Sinularia

tiny frag of Palau green Nephthea

 

[donfishy]

better pic of the Palau Nephthea opened up

 

[KorD]

here is my Green Nephthea.
Just picked up this chunk for $10 (measures 3 inches wide by 5-7 inches high) :)

 

[ritter6788]

Nepthea and sinularia can be really tough to tell apart. I wasn't aware of either being extinct. Sinularia could survive nuclear war.

 

[mfinn]

Nepthea and sinularia can be really tough to tell apart. I wasn't aware of either being extinct. .

There has been a story going around for quite a few years about the neon green nepthea from Palau having gone extinct in the wild. If it's true?
Since then just about every neon green leather corals are labeled as the rare neon green Palau leather, whether they are a sinularia or a nepthea.