What parts of the world are polyps commonly collected?

Lets get a list going.

If you can add in if they are collected on offshore reefs, tide pools, exposed reef at low tide, ect, from each area also, even better!

I have been looking for this info for a loooong time, and have not been very successful.

Anyone have this info?

This thread will be the base of a series of new threads. Hope it goes somewhere.

Sweet thread Sir! I'm off to do some research, I'll be back! :)

From my experiences, they are collected in shallow reefs. But i've heard they occur in deeper water also. I think they will grow wherever they settle. Not sure if this helps but even people who collect them aren't completely sure.

^ That info is great! If you could add the regions of the world they are collected also, that would be even better.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by zoacollector

From my experiences, they are collected in shallow reefs. But i've heard they occur in deeper water also. I think they will grow wherever they settle. Not sure if this helps but even people who collect them aren't completely sure.

---

Zoas are collected just about everywhere.
Vietnam has larger polyped super bright watermelons, GBPs, RDE's, and plenty of way more unique ones.
Carribean has some unique zoas that we dont commonly see in the trade, but you can check them out at coral morphologics site.
Japan exports Zoas
Islands all over Indonesia export nice zoas, Soloman, Fiji, Tonga. Zoas come from just abut everywhere, but as you import from each of these places, you see that each place has a fairly unique structure, at least to some degree.

Zach

When I was in Puerto Rico on a consult for Bill Addison of C-Quest, he took me diving on the South side of the island, and we had to walk about 300 yards thru knee deep water ALL of which was 100% covered with Zoanthids. I was told they continued like that for many miles in both directions. My point is, that where they occur, the quantity can be beyond belief. I've collected up and down the Keys, and never worked any shallow, hard bottom areas that didn't have a few or a lot of Zoas and/or Palys. I guess a better question would be, are there any hard bottom, tropical shallows (to 25 or 30') that don't have them? Just my 2 cents, Dick

I know from colleagues of mine that study zoas that they are found in many remote non-coral reef islands like the Galapagos and the Canary Islands. The larvae of zoanthids can float for up to 2 months, so you can imagine how far around they can disperse. It is related to me that they live nearly as far north as the 34th parallel in Japan, but they benefit from the warm Kuroshio current (much like our Gulf Stream). By comparison, Key West is only at about 25 degrees north. Shallow water is preferred, but I have found them as deep as 70' here in Florida, and I know that they have been found as deep as 100' elsewhere.

Hope that this helps!
Colin
Coral Morphologic

Great info folks!

I'm looking to do a bit of collecting in the keys soon.

:)

Chris here is a link that may help you some;

Genus Zoanthus

This could get interesting