Order SCLERACTINIA Bourne, 1900

Museums

Regional Maps

• Scleractinia Bourne, G.C. 1900. Chapter VI. The Anthozoa. pp. 1-84 in Lankester, E.R. (ed.). Treatise on Zoology. Part II. The Porifera and Coelenterata. London : Adam and Charles Black. [61].

Introduction

Scleractinia, or “Hard corals”, are the builders of coral reefs. Solitary or colonial, scleractinian corals have an exoskeleton composed of calcium carbonate called aragonite. Reef building hard corals are diverse, abundant and morphologically variable with up to 1200 species occurring in the Indo-Pacific region. Reef-building corals contain symbiotic algae called zooxanthellae that enhance the growth capacity of the coral and thus contribute to the development of coral reefs. Their colonies provide vital structure to the reef, providing refuges and surfaces for attachment for many of the organisms associated with coral reefs. Deepwater corals are usually solitary, formed by a single polyp, but they may occur in dense aggregations.
Trade in all hard corals is controlled by the Convention for International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES).

General References

Cairns, S. & Hoeksema, B. 2018. World List of Scleractinia. Scleractinia. Accessed through: World Register of Marine Species. http://www.marinespecies.org/aphia.php?p=taxdetails&id=1363 [accessed on 14/03/2018]

Griffith, J.K. & Fromont, J. 1998. A catalogue of recent Cnidaria type specimens in the Western Australian Museum of Natural Science, Perth. Records of the Western Australian Museum 19: 223–239

Kerr, A.M. 2005. Molecular and morphological supertree of stony corals (Anthozoa: Scleractinia) using matrix representation parsimony. Biological Reviews 80: 543–558

Romano, S.L. & Stake, J.L. 2007. Order Scleractinia. pp. 140-143 in Daly, M., Brugler, M.R., Cartwright, P., Collins, A.G., Dawson, M.N., Fautin, D.G., France, S.C., McFadden, C.S., Opresko, D.M., Rodriguez, E., Romano, S. & Stake, J. The phylum Cnidaria: A review of phylogenetic patterns and diversity three hundred years after Linneaeus. (pp. 127–182). In: Zhang, Z.-Q. & Shear, W.A. (Eds) Linnaeus Tercentenary: Progress in Invertebrate Taxonomy. Zootaxa 1668: 1–766

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