Caribbean Corallimorphs: Natural history and captive care

Caribbean Corallimorphs: Natural History and Captive Care
story and photos 
by COLIN FOORD

     Caribbean corals tend to be regarded by many reef aquarists as less colorful and “exotic” than their Indo-Pacific cousins. This stereotype extends even to the mushroom corals, and it is a bit astonishing, as the Caribbean boasts the stunning Ricordea florida as well as several beautiful Discosoma species that can be found in a seemingly infinite array of colors and forms.
In attempting to catalog the spectrum of morphology of these corallimorpharians, my partner, Jared McKay, and I are trying to bring these hardy, asexually fecund, and relatively affordable animals out of obscurity by documenting their beauty, their natural history in the wild, and their requirements for long-term culture in the aquarium.
      Corallimorphs (order: Corallimorpharia) are a group of anthozoans most closely related to true corals (order: Scleractinia). However, unlike the scleractinians, corallimorphs possess no skeletal structure. The taxonomy of the corallimorphs is still poorly understood, and the group remains relatively neglected by current scientific research. It is likely that there are only four or five families of corallimorphs, comprising no more than 40 or 50 species worldwide. There are three families of corallimorphs that are of importance to coral reef aquarists: Discosomatidae, Ricordeidae, and Corallimorphidae.

To read more about these fascinating corallimorphs, including how to obtain and care for them, and which other aquarium species are appropriate companions, please refer to the story in our print magazine, which may be ordered by going to www.coralmagazineus.com

Colin Foord is a marine biologist and co-founder, with designer Jared McKay, of Coral Morphologic, a Miami, Florida–based marine collection, aquaculture, and photography lab and studio.