Meisen had spoken to me at the MTRC swap and mentioned that he was looking for true Heteroxenia and that many say they have it, but don't actually have Heterxenia. I didn't realize they were hard to find or really different than regular ole Xenia (and maybe they aren't). I don't have any other types of Xeniids except for Cespits, so I couldn't compare this one to the any others.
When I've seen Heteroxenia listed, statements like "Looks like a toadstool banged a Xenia and had offspring" usually accompany it. This one seems to have a stalk like a toadstool (kinda flat on top) any the polyps come from the flat part of the stalk. If for no other reason, since it is apparently relatively easy to get a general idea of Genus by bleaching superficial tissue and inspecting the sclerites, I figured I'd become a bigger nerd and start classifying anything I can to genus level instead of crappy common names.
I plan to do all of my softies to see what I get. Nephthea are supposedly almost never actually in tanks. I have somethign I've been calling Nephthea for a while, so it falls in line with this 'experiment'.
People have shown me Heteroxenia on stocklists, but they can never get one in when they order it for some reason. Some of the reading I've done sounds like any pulse coral could be a Hetero, so they are probably nothing special (unless I'm missing something). Meisen is a collector like me, so when he mentioned it, I thought maybe there was some widely incorrect descriptions of them or something. The one in the pics looked a little different to me when I noticed it, so I thought I'd try to classify it...
