People eater?

[Gluestick]

What is a people eater?! It just looks like a zoa to me. And what is a palythoa, is there a different between any of these guys?
New to corals!

 

[stevemc]

A people eater is a palythoa, a type of zoanthid, usually larger than a zoanthis. There are zoanthis, palythoa, protopalythoa and others. With those 3 the most popular kept zoas. Its just a name that started out purple people eaters from a song in the 60s, and now there are red, orange, green etc people eaters. Most are brown or grey. Its just a name thing. This name thing has kind of gone nuts!

 

[gflat65]

A people eater is a zoa with a green slit mouth (every one I know with the green slit mouth also happen to be Zoanthus gigantus). Z. gigantus are much larger than other zoas (unless under intense lighting). They have taletell white striping on the underside of the oral disc when it closes up. I am not aware of any PE's that are Palythoa, but that doesn't mean there couldn't be a Paly out there with a green slit mouth. The determining factor as I understand it on distinguishing between Palythoa and Zoanthus is whether or not they take sand into their coenenchyme (stalk). Paly's bring sand in for the rough appearance, but Zoanthus do not (smooth appearance).

 

[gflat65]

I had heard that the Purple People Eater's (likely the first named Z. gigantus) was named for the Minnesota Vikings Defense from the 70's, but could be wrong.

 

[Azurel]

I agree with Gflat on the differances explained......

GO VIKES!

 

[stevemc]

I didnt know about the green slit difference. They look just like palys though. Except for that. You are correct sir! Thanks for the info.

 

[gflat65]

FWIW, LFS' get in alot of what they call button polyps on the wholesale sheets. When they come in, they could be one of two things, typically.

This-Palythoa sp. Notice the rough texture (sand in coenenchyme).

or these-Z. gigantus-notice smoother coenenchyme.

Above are the only ones I have with a close up of the coenenchyme and this one is blurry, but if youhave seen similar zoas to these, you can easily see the difference in the coenenchyme on observation. One looks like it could be used as sandpaper and one looks like you could wipe a baby's butt and not make it cry. (Do not try this at home).

 

[Gluestick]

Lol, thanks for the info. What's an xmen?

 

[04mach1]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=8069001#post8069001 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Gluestick
Lol, thanks for the info. What's an xmen?

A fictional comic book character.

 

[Gluestick]

ha ha mach1.
No seriously, there was a thread about them, are they a type of zoa? what is different about them?

 

[K-Dubbs]

Its just a name based on the color of the zoanthids. There are some crazy zoanthid names. Check out www.zoaid.com and you can see some of the different zoanthids that have been "given" a name.

 

[Gluestick]

cool, I'll take a look

 

[Gluestick]

That's an awesome site. Where do people get those crazy colors?! Are they super expensive?

 

[mpoletti]

I picked up a frag of about 50 ring of fire polyps today. I had seen them before, but never knew their name. Thanks for the site.