Gorgonian
Last updated
Gorgonians are colonial marine animals with eight-fold symmetry, commonly known as sea fans and sea whips.[1][2] They belong to the class Octocorallia, which comprises over 3,000 species of soft corals.[1]
Scientific classification
Named by Haeckel, 1866
Sources: Wikipedia taxobox: Octocorallia (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Last updated 2026-10-08 from the source article.
Quick Facts
- Orders
- Malacalcyonacea and Scleralcyonacea
- Common names
- blue corals
- sea pens
- and gorgonians (sea fans and sea whips)
Facts from the source article.
Biology and range
Colonial octocorals consist of many small polyps that are set within a pliable matrix.[3] A slit-like mouth features a single ciliated groove known as a siphonoglyph.[4] Fossil evidence from the 1970s indicates octocorals have been present since at least the Ordovician.[5] A 2021 phylogenetic analysis dated the emergence of Octocorallia to the Ediacaran, roughly 578 million years ago.[6]
Bioluminescence occurs across 32 octocoral genera, with this trait estimated to have first appeared about 540 million years ago.[7]
What the specialist sources record
The World Register of Marine Species records Octocorallia as an accepted class with the environment listed as marine and brackish.[8] The 1982 textbook "Invertebrate Zoology" describes the pharynx as surrounded by eight mesenteries that divide the upper gastrovascular cavity into chambers.[4][9]
References
- Wikipedia, "Octocorallia" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Hoeksema, Bert, "Octocorallia. Haeckel, 1866", 2024-02-29 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Octocorallia" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Daly, "The phylum Cnidaria: A review of phylogenetic patterns and diversity 300 years after Linnaeus", Zootaxa, 21 Dec 2007, p. 1–766 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Octocorallia" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Barnes, Robert D., "Invertebrate Zoology", Holt-Saunders International, 1982, p. 164–169 (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Octocorallia" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Barnes, Robert D., "Invertebrate Zoology", Holt-Saunders International, 1982, p. 164–169; Lopes, "Physiological resilience of a temperate soft coral to ocean warming and acidification", Cell Stress and Chaperones, 2018-06-11, p. 1093–1100; Lasker, "Resilience of Octocoral Forests to Catastrophic Storms", Scientific Reports, 2020-03-09, p. 4286 (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Octocorallia" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Bergström, "Maurits Lindström – A renaissance geoscientist", GFF, 2007, p. 65–70; Taylor, "Reinterpretation of the Cambrian 'bryozoan' Pywackia as an octocoral", Journal of Paleontology, November 2013, p. 984–990; Landing, "Distinguishing Earth's oldest known bryozoan (Pywackia, late Cambrian) from pennatulacean octocorals (Mesozoic–Recent)", Journal of Paleontology, 2015, p. 292–317; Hageman, "Late Cambrian Pywackia is a cnidarian, not a bryozoan: Insights from skeletal microstructure", Journal of Paleontology, 2023, p. 990–1001 (original en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Octocorallia" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: McFadden, "Phylogenomics, Origin, and Diversification of Anthozoans (Phylum Cnidaria)", Systematic Biology, 2021, p. 635–647 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Octocorallia" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Deleo, "Evolution of bioluminescence in Anthozoa with emphasis on Octocorallia", Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 2024 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- World Register of Marine Species, Octocorallia (AphiaID 1341). CC BY 4.0. marinespecies.org
- Open Library record, ISBN 0030567475 ("Invertebrate zoology"). CC0 (metadata); book content not read. openlibrary.org
Each numbered sentence above was checked against the source it cites before publication. Sentences citing Wikipedia adapt text from the English Wikipedia article Octocorallia (contributors), used under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is available under the same licence. Other sources were used for facts only; no text or images are copied from them.
More in Soft Corals and Leathers
Sources
Compiled from Wikipedia and the sources listed below. Text from Wikipedia is available under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is adapted from it.
- Wikipedia: Octocorallia (CC BY-SA 4.0).
- Word definitions: the Codexery glossary, each quoted from its Wikipedia article.
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