Filigree corals

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Filigree corals
Stylaster californicus

Stylaster californicus

Systematics
Trunk : Cnidarians (Cnidaria)
Class : Hydrozoa (Hydrozoa)
Order : Anthomedusae
Subordination : Filifera
Family : Filigree corals
Scientific name
Stylasteridae
Gray , 1847

The family of filigree corals (Stylasteridae) includes 26 genera . They live in all seas, preferably in caves and under overhangs. The earliest members of the family come from the Maastrichtium of Denmark.

features

The colonies form crust-shaped, or upright, tree-like or fan-like branching sticks made of aragonite . They are usually brightly colored, and often thin and sensitive. The exoskeleton is initially tubular, it later forms a meshwork through fusion. This is traversed by so-called Coenosark tubes, remains of the stolons , the epidermis of which is excreted by the skeleton. The stick is initially crust-shaped and constantly thickens due to the excretion of aragonite and finally sends outgrowths upwards into the open water. The outgrowths can branch out and reach a height of about 50 cm. Like the fire corals , the animals have feeding polyps and defense polyps. The feeding polyps are short and cylindrical with a ring of tentacles, while the defense polyps are long and slender without tentacles. The polyps sit in pores of the skeleton and are often connected to one another several times by the Coenosark. The polyps are either distributed irregularly over the hive or combined to form so-called cyclosystems. Several defense polyps sit in a common cup in a ring around a large feeding poly. The defense polyps sit in longitudinal niches of the cup. At the bottom of the cup, the feeding polyp may excrete a thorn (or gastrostyle). On the surface of the stick, the sessile, strongly reduced gonophores (cryptomedusoids) are formed in spherical chambers in the skeleton (so-called ampoules). The cnidome consists only of microbasic mastigophores . Reproduction takes place through larviparie . Filigree corals do not live in symbiosis with zooxanthellae .

Geographical occurrence

Filigree corals occur worldwide from the tropics to the arctic and sub arctic waters. They live from the littoral to the deep sea. They are also involved in the formation of the tropical coral reefs.

Systematics

The systematics given here follows the information in the Hydrozoa Directory .

swell

literature

  • Svein A. Fosså / Alf Jacob Nilsen: Coral Reef Aquarium , Volume 4, Birgit Schmettkamp Verlag, Bornheim, ISBN 3928819054
  • Bernhard Werner: Cnidaria tribe . In: Textbook of Special Zoology. Volume I: Invertebrates Part 2: Cnidaria, Ctenophora, Mesozoa, Plathelminthes, Nemertini, Entoprocta, Nemathelminthes, Priapulida. 4th completely revised edition, pp. 11–305, Gustav Fischer Verlag, Stuttgart 1984 ISBN 3-437-20261-8

Individual evidence

  1. Jaroslav Stolarski: Conopora (Stylasteridae, Hydrozoa) from the Eocene of Seymour Island. Antarctic Science, 10 (4): 487-492, Cambridge 1998 PDF
  2. ^ Peter Schuchert, The Hydrozoa Directory , accessed October 1, 2007
  3. not Pliobothus as in the Hydrozoa Directory "

Web links

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