Difference between Eagle Eyes and Wham Watermelon

[ficklefins]

i didnt say anything about a hornet. i didnt know the red or orange on them was called a ring.

He meant oral disc, which he corrected above your post.

 

[ficklefins]

Good write up nanofins,

What % would say of those labeled as "WW" are actually "EE"?

 

[stedfast82]

i just want a shroom from NF

 

[Corigan]

Correct, the look completely different. I have both color varients in my tank not far apart and are completely different. Like stated the eagle eyes have orange and kinda a purple colored mouth, while the WW are red. Not the greatest pics (my camera stinks) but the eagle eyes are in the bottom left of the first pic with the bright green skirts. The WW are in the upper left of the 2nd pic.

 

[Nanofins]

What % would say of those labeled as "WW" are actually "EE"?

Who knows, but I would say the reverse really. I mostly see WW sold as EE.


.....my shrooms...

 

[gar732]

I have some eagle eyes that were very much eagle eyes when i got them, skirts were more yellow and the disc was definetly orange. Now that I've had them for a couple of months the shirts are more green and the disc is more red. Same frag but the color shifted. They don't look like eagle eyes anymore. I'll have to see if I can find some before pics.

 

[Ericm1205]

i had a nice colony of EE that had the long neon green skirt. alk swing nuked half the colony and now the orange is alot duller and the green skirt dulled to yellow.
but the other EE colony i had mixed with radioactive dragon eyes changed a little bit. they got really bright after fraggin them. the skirts got really green and the orange is brighter.
i do have som before and after pics to show you want i mean. i'l get an updated pic of the now duller EE tomorrow after lights on. and the recently fragged ones that are prettier now.


its so hard to tell the difference between the 2, i just call them all EE now when i see some. i think they are the same and the difference is the shade of the colors on them. they could dull out like mine or change to a vibrant color like my other ones...

 

[ladyreefer1983]

eagle eyes

 

[tampasnooker]

I've had mine misnamed for a while now. What database are you using for ID? My error was from using zoaid's database and was going on color of tentacles.

 

[boehm742]

Was told these were eagle eyes mixed in with some dragon eyes.

 

[ReeferRob]

I always thought the way to truly tell them apart was that there is more white at the base of the skirt on the EE than the WW.

 

[MikeB]

Why are there two different names? These are way to similar to be different. I say we eliminate one name as a community. I vote to call them Eagle Eyes.

 

[Wy Renegade]

I investigated these two morphs a bit previously as well, and received similar answers. Eagles Eyes were the original morph, under tank lighting and water conditions, they began to morph, showing more brilliant, brighter colors. Hobbists wishing to sell their morphs for a little more than standard Eagle Eyes were bringing decided they needed a new name; hence Whammin Watermelons. The two are distinct and remain distinct so long as light and water conditions remain favorable. I would equate this to the Sunny Ds and Vivid's Rainbow paly. Both originated from the same parent strain, but the one has morphed under certain tank conditions and taken on a slightly different look.

 

[BlazinNano]

It also looks like Watermelons ring is a lot thicker going all the way out to the skirt where the Eagle Eys normaly have a space between the ring and the skirt normally which is blue. That is ust what I have noticed, may not be true with all the morphs out there.

 

[ficklefins]

It also looks like Watermelons ring is a lot thicker going all the way out to the skirt where the Eagle Eys normaly have a space between the ring and the skirt normally which is blue. That is ust what I have noticed, may not be true with all the morphs out there.

From my experience, that's more of an environmental impact. EEs that are very shaded will have less orange on the oral disc. Expose them to more light and the oral disc becomes almost completely one color. This also holds true for those radioactive dragon eyes, more light the higher probability the green covers the oral disc (and may even develop white spots).
CoralPedia.com! :: The definitive repository for named Corals!

 

[Nanofins]

Was told these were eagle eyes mixed in with some dragon eyes.

Those look like WW to me. WW's often come in mixed with other RDE's. Looks like they're being kept in lower light, based on their colors.

 

[Nanofins]

I'd have a hard time with saying they are the same. They are similar, yes, but not the same. I've gotten both as wild transhipped imports and they are different from the start and different after years in my tanks. They haven't changed back and forth or anything of the sort. Names are just names and are useful for differentiating what we are talking about. If someone wants the redder one, they ask for WW's, and if they want the orange one they ask for EE's. Should be that simple.

 

[lazyreefer]

I have a couple of different lighting setups, 175 MH, 250 MH, and T5s with two different combinations of bulbs. I have purchased what was IDed as Eagle Eyes, Whammin Watermelons, and Japanese Deepwaters - at the time they all looked distinct with more orange hues in the EE, a redder shade in the WW, and a seriously red shade in the JDs

After a year or so having been fragged and intermixed amongst the different lights I think that an experienced eye would be hard pressed to know which was which anymore. Same thing with several other look alike combinations. This is not a new arguement but if names are going to be "important" in the hobby - for whatever reason - then some better way of ID is necessary. Adding a description to the picture detailing why it is different from another recognizable variety would be a big help, detailing the lighting used, and where the colony came from for example, would all go a long ways towards better classifying zoanthids.

If folks had to send in a couple of three or four polyp frags into a central classification place, let it grow a few weeks under MH and T5 bulbs, then have them photographed and classified, a better reference could be established. This would cut down on the morphs if folks had to actually pay shipping costs to have their name associated with a particular zoanthid and they would have to put out a couple of frags themselves.

And it could serve as a "museum" of sorts where long term effects could be looked over or analyzed by whomever. They could have a sale of frags to the public should the colonies get large, the "museum" could help pay for their maintenance costs that way. The original giver of the frag could get a similar sized frag shipped back to them in return for free as a thank you for donating in the first place.

 

[Wy Renegade]

I'd have a hard time with saying they are the same. They are similar, yes, but not the same. I've gotten both as wild transhipped imports and they are different from the start and different after years in my tanks. They haven't changed back and forth or anything of the sort. Names are just names and are useful for differentiating what we are talking about. If someone wants the redder one, they ask for WW's, and if they want the orange one they ask for EE's. Should be that simple.

The interesting side of this conversation to me becomes, what is it that causes a polyp once morphed, to remain consistant in its new color pattern (i.e. what we call a morph) vs. those polyps which morph their color pattern, then revert back to the original polyp color (i.e. what we refer to as an abherent polyp). It seems plausible that the difference here would be the same as a mutation occurring at a cellular level, vs. a mutation occuring at the genetic level. Personally I think that it is fairly safe to argue that the color patterns we see are the result of minor genetic differences, and that in fact the polyps are the same polyp. Take the PE zoas or Zoanthus giganticus if you prefer - all are the same polyp (i.e., they are the same genetic species), however the color patterns displayed by the various polyps vary greatly - obviously a result of some factor in lighting or chemical parameters. This is very similar to what happens when we produce different variations or cultivers of plants (i.e. a blue columbine vs. the common yellow columbine). While obviously something has changed genetically to cause the WW to remain distinct from the EE, that factor can be changed again, and the color pattern will revert or become exotic. I believe I saw a thread on the Kleidiscope (sp) zoa, in which it was stated that that zoa was a hybrid of WW mixing somehow with the RDE, thereby creating a new morph, which reproduces true to form. Most likely EE, WW, and K (as well as perhaps RDE) are all the same species, simply variations on that species.

 

[Nanofins]

The interesting side of this conversation to me becomes, what is it that causes a polyp once morphed, to remain consistant in its new color pattern (i.e. what we call a morph) vs. those polyps which morph their color pattern, then revert back to the original polyp color (i.e. what we refer to as an abherent polyp). It seems plausible that the difference here would be the same as a mutation occurring at a cellular level, vs. a mutation occurring at the genetic level. Personally I think that it is fairly safe to argue that the color patterns we see are the result of minor genetic differences, and that in fact the polyps are the same polyp. Take the PE zoas or Zoanthus giganticus if you prefer - all are the same polyp (i.e., they are the same genetic species), however the color patterns displayed by the various polyps vary greatly - obviously a result of some factor in lighting or chemical parameters. This is very similar to what happens when we produce different variations or cultivers of plants (i.e. a blue columbine vs. the common yellow columbine). While obviously something has changed genetically to cause the WW to remain distinct from the EE, that factor can be changed again, and the color pattern will revert or become exotic. I believe I saw a thread on the Kleidiscope (sp) zoa, in which it was stated that that zoa was a hybrid of WW mixing somehow with the RDE, thereby creating a new morph, which reproduces true to form. Most likely EE, WW, and K (as well as perhaps RDE) are all the same species, simply variations on that species.

I get what you are saying, and I agree on some level, but when we name morphs we are not making a distinction between species, nor do I think we are naming variants of morphs that occur between different tanks (that would just get crazy). For me, personally, I think that some allowances have to made for phenotypic expression in different environments, but I do not think these warrant new names. I do not consider this a mutation on any level; it's just the coral's ability to adapt to varying conditions, like when we tan in sunnier environments. I'm not a new color sport in summer, I just adapt to the conditions by producing more melanin in my skin. AT THE SAME TIME, I am different from everyone else genetically in a tiny way, even though I'm the same species. There is a HUGE (MASSIVE, ALMOST INDETERMINATE)amount of genetic variation within the Zoanthus and Palythoa genuses, and there are likely constant new combinations of alleles forming from sexual reproduction in the wild. It's possible that because of the soft-tissue, shared-mat nature of zoanthids that they may also be able to share genetic material through contact, and this may lead to predictable genetic crosses (sort of a cross-pollination of two sports within a species) like the Kaleidoscopes. This would be an interesting subject for research. This can lead to the formation of a new "sport", sometimes very similar to a pre-existing morph we have already named. Who knows, there may be so many naturally occurring variations that there is a continuous spectrum between the two colors that has nothing to do with varying conditions. As long as the conditions remain the same, I would expect any change in phenotypic expression to remain the same. I doubt that if conditions change that it would truly be "consistent" in its new pattern.

I would also note that I do not think that aberrant polyps like my sunny-d's, or possibly the mars attacks, or others I've seen are related, as they are not an adaptation to conditions, but simply, in my observations, a temporary reaction to some "truama". They start out "normal", something happens, often physically to the polyp, and then they heal with a messed up pigmentation, but with time they heal and revert to normal. This is not a slow change in adaptation to their environment, nor does it reproduce itself in subsequent polyps. Also, with the sunny-d's, there is some confusion about their origins. There are other vendors that have imported new colonies and sold them as sunny-d's which are not of the same genetic stock as the originals, and on top of that we are not positive that Vivid has maintained the same colony all this time and never imported another similar colony and sold it under the same name as well.

My point is, though, that I have never had an EE turn into a WW in my tank, and wouldn't expect it to happen and then go back and rename it each time. I've had them in a few different systems over time and while some expressed characters have varied, they haven't completely changed to another recognized morph on me.