what makes Tort's diff. from other stags?

[ludiNano]

Yes i will get pics for this, but what makes determines wether a Acropora a Tort??

I just got some frags from local frag fest and cant remeber which on of my frags he said was tort.

I have a blue and purple frag, one was discribed as stag and one Tort. Is it just a family/ speices name thing. The blue one is more bottle necked.

 

[ludiNano]

I got the pics this is what I think is the

Blue Tort.

And Purple Stag horn

 

[ludiNano]

Anything????

 

[SoundsFishy2me2]

I would say Stags tend to be thinner branched for one. Also The stag tends to have more branches (e.g. bushy Vs trunk like.) Corallite's pattern if you look closely. It's sort of like the difference between a millipora and a prostada both same family meaning corals can look really close but there may be subtile differences (prostada has 45 degree branches Vs milli's are normal) IMHO.

 

[Shadowramy]

I would agree that most stags are arborescent to arborescent-hispidose while the tort is Caespitose (bushy). There are several other differences in the corallites and branch size. There are other non-observable difference in the spinule and coenosteum.

SoundsFishy2me2 - depending on who you agree with, Wallace actually does not recognize A. prostada and considers it A. millepora, while Veron considers A. prostada and A. millepora as separate species. However, Wallace is considered to be end all for Acropora, so technically A. prostada and A. millepora are the same.