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dbb123 
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 Topic: Zoa ID
Posted: October 13 2014 at 11:58pm |
what are these guys? I have named them "halloweens" but i have a hard time finding what they are actually called. I love them! under the night  light, they look like a black mass with little orange dots.
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dbb123
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Posted: October 13 2014 at 11:58pm |
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pm the answer if you dont mind
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Mark Peterson
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Posted: October 14 2014 at 12:22pm |
Okay then, they are Halloweens.  Here is a place where you can see pics of a lot of Zoanthids. See if your Halloweens are there:
Aloha 
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dbb123
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Posted: October 14 2014 at 11:31pm |
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after doing quite a bit of research, i think these are actually called gorilla nipples... does anybody have any reason to believe that they are not gorilla nipples? I just like to keep some continuity across common names and would really like to call these by the correct name.
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Mark Peterson
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Posted: October 15 2014 at 8:21am |
A search on the internet turns up many images of slightly different color combinations of Zoanthid commonly called Gorilla Nipples. Common names are just that, common. There is nothing official about them. Why not call them by your name - Halloweens. You know that is how all these common names were derived in the first place, right?
Years ago, one of my daughters, the one that was into biology more than the others, saw our first Royal Gramma and called it Flower. Thereafter in our home that fish and it's successors were always called Flower. 
Here is a bit of trivia, at least as I understand it. Zoa colors are mostly due to the combination of colorful symbiotic Zooxanthellae Algae living in their tissue. It may also be that just like our common Zoanthids are the same species, but appear as many different colors, the Zooxanthellae algae in their tissue may be all the same species, just reflecting different colors. In a way, this is similar to the varieties of skin, hair, eye color, shapes, sizes and etc. in the sole species of Homo sapiens currently remaining on this planet. (Well, except for Bigfoot.  )
Aloha, Mark
P.S. I never have liked that 'nipples' name. Halloweens is a much nicer name. My feelings about this are probably influenced by that same daughter who, when she saw our first red mushrooms with a protruding mouth-anus opening, exclaimed, "Eww gross". She thought they looked like, well, you know.
Edited by Mark Peterson - October 15 2014 at 8:23am
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Mike Savage
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Posted: October 15 2014 at 8:25pm |
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They are Gorilla Nipples.
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