Family MILLEPORIDAE Fleming, 1828

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Introduction

Millepora means 'many pores', the family Milleporidae has a single genus, Millepora(/i). Milleporids are tropical calcareous hydrozoans, commonly known as fire corals or hydrocorals. Their calcium carbonate skeleton (coenosteum) is composed of many shapes including; branching, encrusting and plate-like forms. The Milleporidae coenoestum is composed of an internal network of coenosteal tubes. The outer skeleton is covered by a thin epidermal layer perforated by pores. Coenosteal pores have the internal structure of large gastropores surrounded by small dactylopores forming cyclosystems containing polyps. Polyps are polymorphic and contain gastrozooids (for feeding) with an oral wall of four to seven tentacles. Dactylozooids (for prey capture) are long and thin with tentacles extending from dactylopores. Reproductive chambers are embedded in the coenosteum and gonophores (reproductive pores) arise from the coenosarc (the living tissue overlying the skeleton) within chambers embedded in the coenosteum. Polyps reproduce asexually, and medusae are free swimming when released from ampullae. Medusa release eggs and sperm into the water column and larvae develop and settle on the substrate. Millepora species are also known to reproduce by fragmentation. Like most tropical corals, Milleporidae contain photosynthetic symbiotic algal cells (Lewis, 2006).

Fire corals are listed on Appendix II of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES).

Note on Hydrocoral description:
There are two coral families known commonly as hydrocorals, the Stylasteridae and the Milleporidae. These coral families secrete a calcium carbonate skeleton, and therefore look superficially like cnidarian corals. However, they are hydrozoans - hence the name hydrocoral. Their affinity as hydrocorals was first documented by Agassis (1858) and Moseley (1879), the two were combined in a single order, Hydrocorallina, until Boschma (1956) when they were assigned to the orders Stylasterina and Milleporina (where they are often found in field guides etc). However, there has been sufficient debate since this time to classify them in the suborders of Filifera (Stylasteridae) and Capitata (Milleporidae), order Anthomedusae as defined herein (also see Stylasteridae).

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