Stony Corals Codexery

Scleractinia

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Scleractinia

Johnmartindavies · via Wikipedia: Scleractinia · CC BY-SA 3.0

The World Register of Marine Species lists Scleractinia as an accepted order within the class Hexacorallia.[1] Scleractinia belong to the class Anthozoa and, similar to other members of that class, their life cycle does not include a medusa stage.[2]

Scientific classification

  1. KingdomAnimalia
  2. PhylumCnidaria
  3. SubphylumAnthozoa
  4. ClassHexacorallia
  5. OrderScleractinia

Named by Bourne, 1900

Sources: Wikipedia taxobox: Scleractinia (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Quick Facts

First appearance
Middle Triassic
Maximum solitary size
25 cm (10 in) across
Colonial polyp diameter
1 to 3 mm (0.04 to 0.12 in / 3.05 mm)
Maximum colony size
several metres in diameter or height
Growth rate branching species
around 10 cm (4 in) per year
Maximum depth
about 6,000 m (20,000 ft)

Facts from the source article.

Biology and range

The skeleton of each polyp is a stony cup called a corallite, secreted by the lower epidermis.[2] Modern scleractinian skeletons are composed of aragonite crystals, but the prehistoric Coelosimilia had a calcite skeleton.[3] Hermatypic corals are colonial reef-builders in clear, shallow tropical waters, while ahermatypic corals live in all ocean regions and do not build reefs.[4] Many reef-forming corals host symbiotic dinoflagellates called zooxanthellae in their endodermal cells.[2]

Most stony corals extend tentacles to feed on zooplankton, and some also trap organic particles with mucus films.[5] Polyps, the name for the individual animals, possess a cylindrical shape and feature an oral disc that is encircled by tentacles.[2] Within a polyp's body wall, mesoglea is positioned between two epidermal layers.[2] Living tissue sheets called mesenteries radiate outward and partition the gastrovascular cavity.[2]

Scleractinian corals are found across every ocean worldwide, inhabiting environments from warm, shallow tropical waters down to depths reaching approximately 6000 m.[4]

What the specialist sources record

The Tree of Life Web Project notes that the most recent taxonomic revision divides Scleractinia into 13 suborders, of which 7 have living representatives.[6] That source also states that nine suborders were present when Scleractinia first appeared in the Mid-Triassic, about 240 million years ago.[6] The GBIF Backbone Taxonomy accepts Scleractinia at order rank within the phylum Cnidaria and class Anthozoa.[7] The World Register of Marine Species records the environment for Scleractinia as marine and brackish.[1]

As of October 2026, the GBIF database contains 14,849,512 occurrence records for this taxon.[7]

References

  1. World Register of Marine Species, Scleractinia (AphiaID 1363). CC BY 4.0. marinespecies.org
  2. Wikipedia, "Scleractinia" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Ruppert, "Invertebrate Zoology, 7th edition", Cengage Learning, 2004, p. 132–137 (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
  3. Wikipedia, "Scleractinia" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Stolarski, "A Cretaceous Scleractinian Coral with a Calcitic Skeleton", Science, 2007, p. 92–94 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  4. Wikipedia, "Scleractinia" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "Scleractinia", Tree of Life Web Project, 2002-10-28 (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
  5. Wikipedia, "Scleractinia" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Ruppert, "Invertebrate Zoology, 7th edition", Cengage Learning, 2004, p. 132–137; Ruppert, "Invertebrate Zoology, 7th edition", Cengage Learning, 2004, p. 132–137 (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
  6. "Scleractinia", Tree of Life Web Project, 2002-10-28. facts only, no text reused. tolweb.org
  7. GBIF Backbone Taxonomy and occurrence index, Scleractinia (taxon key 714). CC BY 4.0 (backbone); counts are facts. gbif.org

Each numbered sentence above was checked against the source it cites before publication. Sentences citing Wikipedia adapt text from the English Wikipedia article Scleractinia (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.

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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.

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