WWC’s Psychedelic Timewarp Acantho is like a Neon Tartan Explosion!
There are so many good, colourful corals available these days that we are in danger of becoming desensitised. But when I spotted this specimen during my evening doom scrolling, I knew it was as good as any I featured during my time at Reefbuilders.
The coral is Acanthophyllia deshayesiana, it’s 6”/15cm in diameter, and it’s being offered WYSIWYG in the Vic’s Picks section of World Wide Corals’ website in America for $8500, or the equivalent of £6405.
Acanthos are single polyp LPS corals, known for their frilly, ruffled petticoats and ability to consume dead fish given half a chance. Underneath the fleshy frills are large septal teeth and a large cone-shaped base that buries into the centre of depressions in deep, soft substrates where food items collect.
Veron describes their abundance as “Rare except in deep inter-reef areas,” and up until recently, exclusively wild collected. But they have now been successfully spawned and settled in captivity, the fruits of which should be available in a few years’ time.
Wild Acanthos come from the Indo West Pacific, including Indonesia, the Great Barrier Reef in Australia, and the Philippines, but there is much debate as to where the super colourful Acanthos actually come from, and even the type specimen in Michelin’s original description in 1850 is of “unknown origin.”
The Psychedelic Timewarp, featured, is currently residing in Orlando, Florida, and it has to go down as one of the best Acanthophyllia ever offered, but don’t get too excited, as coral imports from the US to the UK are not allowed, and they have a whole different set of laws, and rules regarding corals too. This one-off will be staying Stateside.
As for colours, I regard a true rainbow as having red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet, and close inspection does seem to reveal all the above plus several additional shades of red and blue.
It’s not even AI, it’s real.
Thanks to World Wide Corals for featuring it.
View it here: https://worldwidecorals.com/collections/vics-picks/products/psychedelic-timewarp-acanthophyllia-12151
