how do corals experience fragging?

[treesprite]

We can't possibly know for sure, but what are your thoughts on how corals and anemones experience being fragged?

 

We can only observe with our eyes, but physiologically and sensory they may experience a lot more than we know.

[zotzer]

Well, I think the fact that they survive being sliced in half, unlike any animal with a spinal cord, means that their sensory receptors are different than anything we can fathom.

 

Tracy

[flowerseller]

I've been fragging for about 17 years and never heard so much as a peep from any of them.

They do close up so maybe you're on to something.

 

 

I have to say it.......

 

or on something

 

[NRehman]

Continuity...

Arrggghh!

Discontinuity...

Discontinuous continuity...

[lanman]

We can't possibly know for sure, but what are your thoughts on how corals and anemones experience being fragged?

 

We can only observe with our eyes, but physiologically and sensory they may experience a lot more than we know.

 

I think when you remove a branch from a montipora digitata, the animals you remove probably feel like they have been separated from the colony - kicked off the island. Perhaps a moment of loneliness, and then the realization that they still have a colony, even if it's somewhat smaller; and then the feeling of empowerment, when they understand that they have a chance to become as great as the parent colony.

 

bob

 

(must stop drinking so early in the day... )

[Lee Stearns]

this is the funniest thread I have read in quite some time-

[dshnarw]

We can't possibly know for sure, but what are your thoughts on how corals and anemones experience being fragged?

 

We can only observe with our eyes, but physiologically and sensory they may experience a lot more than we know.

 

 

Well, shrooms certainly dont like it....they squirt water at you (with fairly good accuracy and distance). Luckily I have poor eyesight and need glasses

[NRehman]

Speaking of shrooms...check with Steve...I hear they get quite steamed about the whole affair...

[treesprite]

this is the funniest thread I have read in quite some time-

 

they are animals which have a means of sensing physical contact with other objects. They don't have emotions, but discomfort is not emotional it's physical.

[YBeNormal]

Maybe, but I'd be careful about mapping these senses to human senses and responses. Flowers and plants sense the sun and bend toward the light. That does not mean that they feel pain when a branch is trimmed though. Likewise, corals may retract when cut but that should not necessarily be construed as as response to pain or even less likely, separation anxiety.

[Gman91]

something like feeders feel when they are sitting in the bait ball at the top of your tank.

[dshnarw]

So I asked this one:

 

But he/she/it didn't say much

 

[treesprite]

I'm not at all comparing to people's way of sensing things - humans have all kinds of mental stuff going on that has nothing to do with their physical being, while as far as anyone knows, corals don't have thoughts or mentality.

 

They do, however, experience some sort of sensation.

[djcerna]

Just because it has a physical response, it doesn

[Sugar Magnolia]

So I asked this one:

 

But he/she/it didn't say much

 

 

What the heck is that?

 

Nothing like getting an eye full of zoa juice when fragging a colony. Thankfully the protective eyewear has kept me safe.

 

Aren't all SPS basically a large colony of individual polyps? Each SPS can be made up of hunderds or thousands of individual polyps. Cutting through an SPS would inevitably damage quite a few polyps, but for the most part, if done carefully the remaining polyps are fine. There a some that still have me wondering how the heck the coral can survive and thrive when cut in half. Or thrids, or quarters. Fungia for example.

[dshnarw]

What the heck is that?

 

Nothing like getting an eye full of zoa juice when fragging a colony. Thankfully the protective eyewear has kept me safe.

 

Aren't all SPS basically a large colony of individual polyps? Each SPS can be made up of hunderds or thousands of individual polyps. Cutting through an SPS would inevitably damage quite a few polyps, but for the most part, if done carefully the remaining polyps are fine. There a some that still have me wondering how the heck the coral can survive and thrive when cut in half. Or thrids, or quarters. Fungia for example.

 

 

Maxi carpet nem

 

 

I don't think that they feel pain, discomfort, etc., but they do have a nerve "system" (if you wanna call it that), and they can sense things. But if they propagate themselves via fission, us propagating them by fission with a knife isn't much different.

 

 

 

That said: we don't know a lot about corals and anemones, so who knows whats really going on...Example: scientists have found photoreceptors (essentially primitive eyes) in corals: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/18/science/...amp;oref=slogin

Edited October 21, 2007 by dshnarw

[stevil]

Every time a coral is fragged a star falls from heaven, an angel dies and a bag of kittens and/or puppies is thrown into traffic/a frozen lake.

[treesprite]

actually I kind of classify "pain" as mental - it's a mental way to interpret a physical sensation. Discomfort, on the other hand, is a physical sensation.