Sunset Montipora

This brilliantly colored coral has a base intense orange pigmentation with very large polyps that are colored bright fluorescing green. The coral is currently being called the ‘Sunset Monti’ within the collectors market. It also has some very unique additional characteristics. Polyps are twice the size of average Montipora polyps and they extend regularly during the day. Additionally, when heavily stressed the corals living tissue will retract deep inside the skeleton and it can appear almost completely dead. This coral however can recover from heavy stress quickly and can grow new encrustation quickly. It is quickly becomming a brilliantly colored staple of stony reefs. Polyp size leads one to suspect the coral to be either a Poritidae or one of the larger polyp sized Montiporas (such as M. foveolata or M. venosa). As can be seen in the corallite structure image below, when tissue is stressed and retracted the corallite structure has a slight funnel shaped pattern.