How about an ID?

[MikeP]

I am not so much doubting him as trying to understand why suck a different growth form would even be considered in the same species.

I believe the 'button' polyps many people call playthoa are actually in the protopalythoa genus. The distinguishing factor all palythoa have is the thick mat between polyps.

The best synopsis I found on the difference in 'zoanthid' type colonial corals is here:

http://www.advancedaquarist.com/issu...003/invert.htm

[Ram_Puppy]

there ya go... that has got to be it... and no one ever calls protopaly's by their proper name.

well cool, now we can start a trend.

[kirkandkhristi]

This thing was sold as a palythoa but the more I looked, the more I doubted. I began to suspect some sort of a protopalythoa, but again I have yet to see a photo of something that looks exactly the same. Maybe I should not have such an expectation. I have seen several pics of similar looking critters, but none that were close enough for me to say THATS IT!. I guess it would be nice to punch in whatever name a particular coral has and find an "exact" match at least on the first ten pages of hits...