Oceans Reefs & Aquarium recently shared this photo an ORA Blue Iris colony to show the corals growth pattern and physical characteristics. Perhaps meant to qualm fears over the corals color similarity to other ORAs? It now seems to have added further speculation to the scientific name of this coral. Truthfully the labeling of most [...]
Oceans Reefs & Aquarium recently shared this photo an ORA Blue Iris colony to show the corals growth pattern and physical characteristics. Perhaps meant to qualm fears over the corals color similarity to other ORAs? It now seems to have added further speculation to the scientific name of this coral.
Truthfully the labeling of most corals with scientific names is closely linked with marketing. One scientific study that we previously showed you, Shape Shifting Corals, showed that morphological analysis is a crap shoot even for scientists. The ORA Blue Iris is an Acropora. A purple tipped, bottle brush-like Acroporid. That’s not to say it is not fun and interesting to apply scientific names, but be cognizant of the limitations.
The Linnaeus legacy is one of man made proportions. Take it for what it is, but realize the classification of any life will never be black and white.
