That is a copy paste of my e-mail. Today I'm going to write him another one with more info but the info will be useless.
I have known Charles a long time, through the internet and there are often things we like to say about the ID of plants, corals and many inverts but we usually just keep our mouths shut. I kinda did that on that anemone thread a couple of weeks back. He puts in words here
otherwise this is like showing someone a fin and asking what fish it came from.
This is very true. The other issue is many corals and plants get morphed in aquariums and are impossible to ID to species. Finally, in case someone reads that e-mail wrong, that is not Charles Delbeek talking but Dr. Isabel Abbott, the worlds leading expert on red algae. I'm 58 years old and she has been studying algae before I was even born.:bugout: 83 years old or so. And she is almost clueless to what it is :smack: I also **use to send pics** of anemones to Dr. Daphne Dunn Fautin. The pics where very clear to fairly clear. "Boom I can not ID that anemone by its picture. "I need the real thing " Me, I was 99 % sure it was anemone X, Y or Z. But allot of Tax guys and girls are like that, so ID unless real thing in hand. So I need to slow down on "it" is X, Y, or Z. If Dr Jen Veron stopped in here for an ID on a perfect picture of a SPS and someone said it was X, Y or Z, he would say flat out, "you can not ID a
Acropora sp by a picture period, especially one that has been in reef tank for some time." He told me once that an Acropora that has been in a reef tank for a long time that he may not be able to ID it at all to species level
Many SPS in this hobby are probably mis-ID, same for plants and many inverts.