Order ALCYONACEA Lamouroux, 1816

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Introduction

Members of the order Alcyonacea, commonly known as soft corals, are sessile colonial animals that comprise of both feeding polyps (autozooids), with eight pinnate tentacles, and modified water-pumping polyps (syphonozooids). Soft corals do not produce the skeleton that hard corals do, but are supported by numerous, small calcareous spicules embedded in their tissues. Some spicules have an internal axis of protein or calcium carbonate, but in a different crystal structure from the limestone of hard corals. The shape of spicules is a critical character for distinguishing species.

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General References

McFadden, C.S. & van Ofwegen, L.P. 2013. Molecular phylogenetic evidence supports a new family of octocorals and a new genus of Alcyoniidae (Octocorallia, Alcyonacea). ZooKeys 346: 59-83

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