Echinophyllia aspera? The corallite structure of the piece of your pictures resembles like the corallite structures of the electron microscope pictures of the Australian Institute of Marine Science, http://coral.aims.gov.au/factsheet.jsp?speciesCode=0136. What is the source of your scientific description of the species Echinophyllia aspera? Actually, I do not have any working position in a scientific institute, so that I am sitting in the public library in Kiel, Germany to check my e-mails and the questions. The public library has only two coral field guides. One of the Red Sea and the other of the Indian Ocean and West Pacific, which do not include the species you mentioned here. 

Do you have any access to an electron microscope in the Department of Biology at the Abu Academi University of Turku in Finland or at the Department of Biology of the University of Hong Kong to compare a picture of your coral piece with the pictures        of the Australian Institute of Marine Science of Echinophyllia aspera, if the similarity      of the corallite structures of your pictures with the corallite structures of the pictures       of the Australian Institute of Marine Science do not convince you of the species mentioned there. 

Did you collect the coral piece by yourself in the South Chinan Sea near the coast of Hong Kong (Peoples Republic of China) or is it part of the inventory of the Department of Biology of the University of Hong Kong (Peoples Republic of China) or the Department of Biology of the Abu Akademi University of Turku (Finland)?

Do you have any documents  - export and import permits - that confirm that the coral piece was only acquired for the conservation of the species or do you intend to assimilate it to powder to use it as a virility increasing "drug", as a philosophy         master student? Why don't you study biology as a master instead of philosophy,       which usually do not have to do anything with biology in general and the identification    of coral pieces in concrete? Your information are a little bit misleading. 

Stefan:

Your specimen does not match with Echinophyllia aspera. 

Best

Syed

Dear Syed Abbas Jafar, 

your statement is not helpful, if you do not give a reason for your decision or a proposal for another species, so you can leave it out.

Eva-Lisa:

You are absolutely right that my answer is not complete without reliable identification of this tiny piece of coral. Echinophyllia aspera is well documented species and does not match with the Stefan's material - the next step would be to attempt proper identification.

Best

Syed

Stefan and Eva-Lisa:

You may like to have a look at this link. The specimen looks like a bit corroded belonging to Family Faviidae and shows affinity with genus Favia. Provide Scale for further assessment.

http://biopublisher.ca/index.php/ijms/article/html/2354/

Best

Syed

Dear Eva.Lsa and Syed Jafar.

First of all, thank you both for trying to help me in this matter, however both of your answers did not directly help me, to be honest.

Eva-Lisa: I thank you for your concern's on my profile, however there were no such inquiries in this question for you to pick out the flaws in my profile, and your points are invalid. The permits are in order, and I would not post any copies here to prove my point as this would be highly unnecessary, and the fragment I found was entirely buried in sediment, yes it was from Hong Kong as this is already pointed out in my question. Second, as you already are a PhD student (Philosophy doctorate) I would think you ought to understand that and Masters in Philosophy is in fact also in the same category as your studies. My studies are as follows, a Major in Environmental biology, a minor in marine biology and a minor in chemistry, but I thank you for your concern for my future! As I forgot to inform you where my knowledge comes form to identify the species, you were right on your guess as I am using the Corals of the World internet site, the one you cited. 

Syed, I thank you for your reply, however I highly doubt due to the growth form and formation of ridges that it is not a member of the Faviidae family. I have stumbled upon quite a few Favids and they do not resemble this species at all. My references are in fact intact coral fragments that have been identified by J.E.N. Veron himself. Favids do not form the same type of ridges that Lithophyllon or Echinophyllia form. I do however think that this fragment (with the finger as a reference to an estimate of size) is a strange growth form of Echinophyllia, this will be confirmed by future visiting researchers that have an excellent knowledge of species identification.

Stefan:

Who is J.E.N. Veron? Where and how did you collect this tiny fragment of coral? How does it occur in natural habitat - water depth, turbidity? Have a look at this link, which you may find interesting and we are curious to know the correct identification of this species.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/252321313_Echinophyllia_tarae_sp_n_Cnidaria_Anthozoa_Scleractinia_a_new_reef_coral_species_from_the_Gambier_Islands_French_Polynesia

Best

Syed

Article Echinophyllia tarae sp. n. (Cnidaria, Anthozoa, Scleractinia...

Dear Syed

I would recommend you to google who this person is, you might learn something new. This question also indicates that you are not familiar with coral identification. I do not want to tell too much about this fragment or where I found this fragment (I mentioned earlier that it is found in Hong Kong and this should be enough information of it's location) which is bigger than my hand as to this will probably valuable information I will publish, and I do not want anyone to steal this publication from me at an open forum.

Stefan:

I do not claim the coral expertise matching that of Veron. However, you do not supply vital information for the fear of your data being stolen by RG members sounds rather strange to me. Why don't you get best expert advice from Veron, instead of posting fragmentary material at RG.

Best

Syed

Dear Stefan, 

thank you for indicating me, that my question about the source of the description of Echinophyllia aspera, about which you said in your first statement, that it do not fit entirely to the fragment you mentioned here, did not help you, because it was the    same description as the description in the Link I send you from the Australian     Institute of Marine Research, so what do you expect from us, that would help               you to identify the fossil coral piece you show us here? 

The description of Echinophyllia aspera of the website of the Australian Institute of Marine Research is from a morphological and taxonomical perspective indeed not     very detailed and when I only would take the information mentioned there as a basis      of decision to publish the results I would be very happy, to find a fossil piece of Echinophyllia aspera in Hong Kong, because it seem to be, that nobody has         detected the species neither as a fossil piece nor as a living coral there before.              Is that really the case? 

However, before I would decide to publish my results together with other scientists, I would collect some more facts about your fossil coral piece and practice to describe               the structure with the necessary technical terms, like it is the case in the article         Syed selected for you. For me at the moment it seem to be that you are far               away from such a detailed description of the fossil coral piece you have, but                     I can be wrong. Helpful would be to read such articles like Syed selected and             than include the technical terms in your question and statement for us to         understand better, what your concrete identification issue is with the                      reference material you have. For me it seem to be Echinophyllia                                aspera without any serious doubts, but I have only the information                                  you mentioned here, that means in concrete the three pictures of                                    the fossil coral piece. 

Do not care too much about my frame questions. I was only interested in how serious my discussion partner takes his studies and his work and it seem to be, that he take       them very serious, which do not include any evaluation about your person. However      a Phd in the natural sciences (Dr. rer. nat. in Germany) is definitively not a master in philosophy. 

Do you know the age of the fossil coral piece from sedimentological and isotopic analysis? Do you know the roughly distribution of the species in the sediments              of Hong Kong, as well as in the South Chinese Sea ? Do you know the molecular      code of the fossil piece and the living coral? And do you have a reference data             base (molecular) to compare it with the information there from fossil and living        corals? Such information would be helpful to increase the rate of security that            your fossil coral piece really does match to the species Echinophyllia aspera               and can provide you beyond that some more interesting information, e.g. when             the molecular code of your fossil piece differ in some characteristic functional            parts of the DNA of the living one.  

I know, that it is possible to extract the molecular information from fossil coral          pieces, if that is your problem, because I did some practical work in the field                   of ancient DNA- Analysis during my studies in biology in Germany. 

Perhaps the following contact will help you to get more information about that interesting field of biological methods. https://experiment.com/projects/can-we-analyze-dna-from-fossil-corals. 

Dear Stefan, 

in regard to the point that you fear, that someone could steal information from that RG (which is indeed open to the public) platform about the identification of the fossil coral piece from Hong Kong you mentioned here to publish them in a scientific journal   without your agreement, I think it is unrealistic for two points. The first point is,              that it would make only sense if that person would be someone who is allowed               to publish in scientific journals and leads a research project in the same field of research. Such a research project has to be planned very seriously and costs a            lot of money, which runs through several scientific assessments first before the         state (ministries) or other research funders grant the money for the project, the     material and the scientists working on that project. Scientists who are allowed to    publish in scientific journals are either students who are supervised by another      scientist with the minimum of a doctorate degree or scientists with a doctorade      degree or any further qualification beyond like a professor. Such people have to succeed the code of the best scientific practice which do not allow them to steal information from other scientists to publish them without their agreement, so you          can put your mind at rest. If you want to publish your results it would be nice if              you mention the names of the people in the RG platform in the Acknowledgement      who gave you some helpful advises with the identification of your fossil coral piece,      but do not hesitate to refuse the names if it was not the case, we do not arise a         claim to be mentioned on your publication. From my part I am only interested in         that field of research, because I worked ten years ago with the identification of            fossil and living corals in the red sea. Your question here remembers me very             well to that experiences, so I only wanted to help you. I do not think, that other    scientists here follow other objects. Of course we have more and more scientists worldwide and coral research is a very well studied field, however, there is still so     much to do that we do not have to regard other scientists as competitors, that is     wasted time. 

It would be very interesting to read a publication of your research results, especially       in regard to the distribution of historic and recent corals in the South Chinese See to    see in what dimension the continously carbon dioxide production and other environmental problems have already changed the biodiversity and distribution              of coral species there. 

 I believe it is Echinophyllia aspera! When I expanded the pictures, I could see the structure! Good Luck with your PhD! 

Thank you all for your answers, I will probably conclude that it is Echinophyllia aspera.

Stefan:

What do we understand by: "Probably conclude...." E. aspera is the most common coral in Hong Kong, and you should be able to identify it based on additional habitat data. Kindly see this link:

http://coral.aims.gov.au/factsheet.jsp?speciesCode=0136

Best

Syed

Syed,

E. aspera is not the most common coral in Hong Kong.  The species is extremely rare to find, if we are looking at living colonies.

Stephan:

Is your fragmentary piece fossil or from living colony? Have a look at this map. What can one decipher from this? From the beginning you were skeptical about        your fragmentary specimen being E. aspera. So what is the probability that your specimen is actually E. aspera? Honestly! Make a decision and provide arguments for or against E. aspera!.

http://maps.iucnredlist.org/map.html?id=133172

Best

Syed

Thank you all for your answers and input to this question. As this will not be a a part for my study in past coral reefs in Hong Kong, I will not add this to my results. I will not however be adding anymore answers to this question poll about the fragment as I do not find it very helpful, thank you all for your criticism and thoughtfulness of the situation. Wish you all the best!

- Stefan

Stephan:

It is unethical to run away mid-way without bringing the discussion to a fruitful conclusion. Here is the link (Fig. 8) with best expert advice, which clearly shows that your fragmentary specimen falls into morphological variation of Echinophyllia aspera. Lesson: Never ever give up.

Best

Syed

Correction: Stefan not Stephan

S T E F A N :

Really wonder why you down voted extremely helpful links! Somewhere, a bigger correction is warranted.

Best

Syed

Syed:

Stefan does not want to discuss his coral identification problem with other scientists       in an open forum, anymore, because he feels, that it is a disadvantage for his carrier. 

I think it is shortsighted, but who knows. It is right, that we do not get any money for sharing our thoughts here, like it is the case, when we write a scientific publication        or a book, so that we do not have any direct personal gain providing our knowledge    and questions here and share them with others. However, if Stefan searches for the physical love of a woman/man, who is sitting next to him and explains him the species, like a mother/father/friend is doing it for a child, to solve his identification problem he   has to look on his regional level, because that we can not provide here, that is right.  

The declaration of a marine protected area in the South Chinese Sea and the reduction of the CO2-emission, as well as the reduction of the pesticide, fertilise and plastic waste input would help the rare coral species Echinophyllia aspera to survive on longterm, but such projects can be realized only with the scientific advisors of the MEP (Chen Jining) and they expect a good scientific communication, especially a fair and cooperative one, which can be practice in such forums, I think very well.