What is this mushroom doing? (1 Viewer)

[frankc]

I have never seen one do this before. It looks kind of like the sweeper tentacles that some corals have, but I didn't think mushrooms have those. It doesn't appear to be dying, because it looks totally normal today.


If it was sweepers, I would think this one would be doing it, since it is being encroached upon by the elkhorn Montipora.

 

[Erin]

Those are mesenterial filaments... basically the coral's guts. They do this for defense... Maybe there's some chemical warfare going on.

Edit: here's info from a post on R2R--
Corals release mesenterial filaments for one of three main reasons
1. They are fighting/trying to kill something else, usually another coral
2. They are feeding very, VERY, aggressively
3. They are super stressed and in a "panic mode"

 

[BigRick]

It's puking it's guts, when shrooms do that they're hard to recover when that happens on shrooms.

 

[frankc]

Those are mesenterial filaments... basically the corals guts. They do this for defense... Maybe there's some chemical warfare going on.

Edit: here's info from a post on R2R--
Corals release mesenterial filaments for one of three main reasons
1. They are fighting/trying to kill something else, usually another coral
2. They are feeding very, VERY, aggressively
3. They are super stressed and in a "panic mode"

I'm going with number 2 here, although I don't know what it's trying to eat. There aren't other corals near it other than one of the same kind. I don't think it's stressed or dying because today it looks perfectly normal and healthy. It's odd that in over 12 years of keeping mushrooms, this is the first time I've seen this.

 

[Cody]

I'm going with number 2 here, although I don't know what it's trying to eat. There aren't other corals near it other than one of the same kind. I don't think it's stressed or dying because today it looks perfectly normal and healthy. It's odd that in over 12 years of keeping mushrooms, this is the first time I've seen this.

Touch it next time it happens. I dare you

 

[BigRick]

Updates?

 

[frankc]

Updates?

It has not done it again, and it still looks healthy and normal.

 

[Cody]

It has not done it again, and it still looks healthy and normal.

That interesting. I had seen pics of this before too and understood that it was the last hurrah of the coral. Very cool it's doing just fine!