Identifying different SPS… How do you experts do it?

[sculpin01]

Whoever told you that was incorrect.

Bear in mind that most Acropora and Montipora species ID’s are approximate. There are likely hundreds of occult Acropora (and likely Montipora) species that will require sequencing data to differentiate. Vernon’s texts are awesome but should be viewed as species approximations rather than definitive. The process of Acropora genotyping is currently going on in Australia and will likely impact coral imports in the future.

 

[emvanburen]

I wish I found this thread an hour ago....have done much research to arrive in exactly the same place! Regardless, I think staghorns make a nice complement to the traditional acro types and I am building a little collection of them to add a nice vertical punch to the reefscape. I just got a "Grafted Banana Hammock Stag" (who makes this stuff up) which at one inch is not very impressive, but I have high hopes! Tidal Gardens has a Silver Surfer Stag that looks pretty cool as well. Then there are the slimers, and I think we could include the Torts in there as well.

 

[thamnasteroid]

I was told that “Staghorn” corals aren’t in the hobby - Cervicornis is the only Staghorn apparently and they’re ciritically endangered.

That's West-Atlantic staghorn. There are other staghorn species, including muricata, intermedia, pulchra, horrida, etc. "Staghorn" Just refers to the arborescent growth form.

 

[thamnasteroid]

When I first got into the hobby I became obsessed with corals, I spent a lot of time pouring through the pages of these
books

Can click around here

http://www.coralsoftheworld.org/species_factsheets/species_factsheet_summary/acropora-millepora/

by looking at the corallite structure you can narrow things down quite a bit.

Say

vs

I honestly don't trust Veron, unless he described the species. Veron's species concepts often differ from said species' type specimen(s) and original descriptions.

 

[thamnasteroid]

I’ve only just began to get into SPS and have got two beautiful blue frags growing currently.
Now, I know there’s a ton of different acros and SPS in general. But it seems the most common in this hobby include:
Montipora capricornis
Montipora digitata
Montipora spoingodes
Acropora millepora
Acropora tortuosa

How do we differentiate SPS from eachother?
is it something to do with the Polyps, growth or just the look in general?

Sorry for the many questions it’s just how I’d love to have different species and not just this one species dominating the tank.

I've never actually seen a true capricornis in the hobby, but they are characterized by having no coenosteal ornaments while still having a rough coenosteum.

Digitata are branching and have no coenosteal ornaments.

Spongodes is columnar with widely spaced polyps and a smooth coenosteum, from what I can tell from Bernard's Syntypes (aquarium specimens labeled as such are likely not spongodes) (I had to go digging REALLY deep to find images of the type specimens).

Millepora are usually hot pink or yellow, and are corymbose with flared corallites. They are differentiated from tenuis by having thicker branchlets and more compact corallites.

 

[Featherweight]

It's pattern recognition. Coralite shape, growth form, polyps structure, etc etc.

 

[thamnasteroid]

Whoever told you that was incorrect.

Bear in mind that most Acropora and Montipora species ID’s are approximate. There are likely hundreds of occult Acropora (and likely Montipora) species that will require sequencing data to differentiate. Vernon’s texts are awesome but should be viewed as species approximations rather than definitive. The process of Acropora genotyping is currently going on in Australia and will likely impact coral imports in the future.

It's less so that Acro and Monti IDs are "approximate" and more that the morphospecies really represent cryptic species complexes, differentiated by locality rather than morphology.

To add, genetic sequencing is not the end-all-be-all. Different collection localities, genes sequenced, etc. will yield different results. Many molecular studies studying the same taxa have produced differing phylogenetic tree topologies due to this.

In addition, species boundaries are not always well-defined both morphologically and genetically, which can lead to misidentifications with these studies.