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Stony corals occur in all the world's oceans. There are two main ecological groups. Hermatypic corals are mostly colonial corals which tend to live in clear, oligotrophic, shallow tropical waters; they are the world's primary reef-builders. Ahermatypic corals are either colonial or solitary and are found in all regions of the ocean and do not ...
The classification of corals has been discussed for millennia, owing to having similarities to both plants and animals. Aristotle's pupil Theophrastus described the red coral, korallion, in his book on stones, implying it was a mineral, but he described it as a deep-sea plant in his Enquiries on Plants, where he also mentions large stony plants that reveal bright flowers when under water in ...
Mushroom corals: Colonial and diverse, with polyps almost completely embedded in thick fleshy coenosarc. Gorgonians have a horny skeleton. Zooxanthellate or azooxanthellate. [2] Worldwide, mostly in tropical and subtropical waters, associated with coral reefs and in deep sea. [2] Octocorallia: Helioporacea Blue corals: Heliopora coerulea
It includes all of the stony corals, most of which are colonial and reef-forming, as well as all sea anemones, and zoanthids, arranged within five extant orders. [2] The hexacorallia are distinguished from another class of Anthozoa, Octocorallia , in having six or fewer axes of symmetry in their body structure; the tentacles are simple and ...
All the genera in this family are colonial, reef-building corals. Skeletal structures are similar to those of Faviidae but are highly fused, without paliform lobes. The valleys are superficial or may be indistinct because of fan-like spreading or contortions in the ridges. Faviidae and Trachyphylliidae are the most closely related families. [1]
The Rugosa, also called the Tetracorallia, rugose corals, or horn corals, are an extinct order of solitary and colonial corals that were abundant in Middle Ordovician to Late Permian seas. [ 3 ] Solitary rugosans (e.g., Caninia , Lophophyllidium , Neozaphrentis , Streptelasma ) are often referred to as horn corals because of a unique horn ...
Tabulata, commonly known as tabulate corals, are an order of extinct forms of coral. They are almost always colonial , forming colonies of individual hexagonal cells known as corallites defined by a skeleton of calcite , similar in appearance to a honeycomb .
Octocorallia (also known as Alcyonaria) is a class of Anthozoa comprising over 3,000 species [1] of marine organisms formed of colonial polyps with 8-fold symmetry. It includes the blue coral, soft corals, sea pens, and gorgonians (sea fans and sea whips) within three orders: Alcyonacea, Helioporacea, and Pennatulacea. [2]