Scleronephthya
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Scleronephthya sp. |
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||
| Scleronephthya | ||||||||||
| Studer , 1887 |
Scleronephthya is a genus of coral from the subclass Octocorallia . It is distributed in the Red Sea and in the tropical Indo-Pacific as far as the Philippines , New Guinea , the Solomon Islands and Micronesia . It mainly grows on reef edges, on overhangs or hangs down from cave roofs.
features
Scleronephthya - Colonies appear fleshy and have short, branching stems. They are only stabilized by the internal water pressure. Main trunk and large branches are without polyps . These sit in balls at the ends of the branches. As with all Octocorallia, the Scleronephthya polyps have eight tentacles. They cannot be completely drawn into the branches. The branches are densely covered with spindle-shaped sclerites so that when pulled together they feel rough. The polyps do not have sclerite. Scleronephthya are usually brightly colored yellow, orange or red. In contrast to the closely related genus Dendronephthya , the trunk, branches and polyps are usually of the same color. Scleronephthya does not live in symbiosis with zooxanthellae , but lives exclusively by catching phytoplankton .
literature
- Julian Sprung: Korallen , Dähne Verlag, 2000, ISBN 3-92168-487-0
- Svein A. Fosså / Alf Jacob Nilsen: Coral reef aquarium. Volume 4, Birgit Schmettkamp Verlag, Bornheim, ISBN 3-928819-05-4
