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Pseudodiploria
''Pseudodiploria'' is a genus of stony corals in the subfamily Faviinae of the family Mussidae. This genus was erected in 2012, having been split off from the genus ''Diploria''. This genus is found in the tropical and subtropical West Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea. Characteristics ''Pseudodiploria'' is a colonial coral. Budding is always intracalicular, occurring inside the oral disc of the polyp, within the whorl of tentacles. The corallites are meandroid, with a number of centres being linked serially, separated by valleys some wide. There is a continuous, trabecular columella but hardly any coenosteum. The septal teeth are three-pointed and are orientated transversely to the septal plane. Species The World Register of Marine Species lists the following two species : *'' Pseudodiploria clivosa'' (Ellis & Solander, 1786) *''Pseudodiploria strigosa ''Pseudodiploria strigosa'', the symmetrical brain coral, is a Colony (biology), colonial species of Scleractinia, s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pseudodiploria Clivosa
''Pseudodiploria clivosa'', the knobby brain coral, is a colonial species of stony coral in the family Mussidae. It occurs in shallow water in the West Atlantic Ocean and Caribbean Sea. Description The knobby brain coral is a massive coral that either forms hemispherical domes or, particularly in areas of high wave action, forms plates and encrusts the seabed. It can grow to a diameter of about . The surface of the dome usually has a number of bulges or knobs but this species is not easy to distinguish from the symmetrical brain coral which tends to have a smoother outline. The surface consists of sharply delineated, convoluted ridges with valleys in between. There is no trough-like groove in the top of the ridge as is the case in the rather similar grooved brain coral ''(Diploria labyrinthiformis)''. The coral polyps are strung along the valley bottoms, each sitting in a little stony cup or corallite. The sides of these have minute walls called septa which come in four differ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pseudodiploria Strigosa
''Pseudodiploria strigosa'', the symmetrical brain coral, is a colonial species of stony coral in the family Mussidae. It occurs on reefs in shallow water in the West Atlantic Ocean and Caribbean Sea. It grows slowly and lives to a great age. Description The symmetrical brain coral forms smooth flat plates or massive hemispherical domes up to in diameter. The surface is covered with interlinking convoluted valleys in which the polyps sit in cup-shaped depressions known as corallites. Each of these has a number of radially arranged ridges known as septa which continue outside the corallite as costae and link with those of neighbouring corallites. The ridges separating the valleys are smoothly rounded and do not usually have a groove running along their apex as does the rather similar grooved brain coral (''Diploria labyrinthiformis''). The coral has symbiotic dinoflagellate alga called zooxanthella in its tissues and it is these which give the coral its colour of yellowish ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Diploria
''Diploria'' is a monotypic genus of massive reef building stony corals in the family Mussidae. It is represented by a single species, ''Diploria labyrinthiformis'', commonly known as grooved brain coral and is found in the western Atlantic Ocean and Caribbean Sea. It has a familiar, maze-like appearance. Description This species of reef-building coral has a hemispherical, brain-like shape with a brown, yellow, or grey colour. It has characteristic deep, interconnected double-valleys. These polyp-bearing valleys are each separated by grooved ambulacral ridges. There may be a difference in colour between the valleys and the grooves. ''Diploria labyrinthiformis'' can grow upward at a rate of approximately 3.5 millimeters per year, achieving about in diameter. During its planktonic larval stage, the coral has locomotion. After that time, it becomes permanently sessile. This species is a suspension feeder, and survives mainly on zooplankton and bacteria. These are captured by th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mussidae
Mussidae is a family of stony coral in the order Scleractinia. Following a taxonomic revision in 2012, the family is now restricted to species found in the Atlantic Ocean, with Pacific species transferred to the new family Lobophylliidae. Many species are referred to as brain coral because their generally spheroid form and grooved surface resembles the convolutions of a brain. Members of this family are found in the reef aquarium trade. Though popular in captivity, they are under threat from environmental destruction like coral bleaching. The Mussidae is one of the coral families most vulnerable to climate change. Taxonomy The family Mussidae has long been recognised on morphological grounds but recent molecular analysis has shown that it, and several other related families, are polyphyletic, the similarities between the species having occurred through convergent evolution. Additionally, some traditional genera such as '' Favia'' and ''Scolymia'' have been found to be poly ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Genus
Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms as well as viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus comes above species and below family. In binomial nomenclature, the genus name forms the first part of the binomial species name for each species within the genus. :E.g. '' Panthera leo'' (lion) and '' Panthera onca'' (jaguar) are two species within the genus '' Panthera''. ''Panthera'' is a genus within the family Felidae. The composition of a genus is determined by taxonomists. The standards for genus classification are not strictly codified, so different authorities often produce different classifications for genera. There are some general practices used, however, including the idea that a newly defined genus should fulfill these three criteria to be descriptively useful: # monophyly – all descendants of an ancestral taxon are grouped together (i.e. phylogenetic analysis should cl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Scleractinia
Scleractinia, also called stony corals or hard corals, are marine animals in the phylum Cnidaria that build themselves a hard skeleton. The individual animals are known as polyps and have a cylindrical body crowned by an oral disc in which a mouth is fringed with tentacles. Although some species are solitary, most are colonial. The founding polyp settles and starts to secrete calcium carbonate to protect its soft body. Solitary corals can be as much as across but in colonial species the polyps are usually only a few millimetres in diameter. These polyps reproduce asexually by budding, but remain attached to each other, forming a multi-polyp colony of clones with a common skeleton, which may be up to several metres in diameter or height according to species. The shape and appearance of each coral colony depends not only on the species, but also on its location, depth, the amount of water movement and other factors. Many shallow-water corals contain symbiont unicellular org ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Family (biology)
Family ( la, familia, plural ') is one of the eight major hierarchical taxonomic ranks in Linnaean taxonomy. It is classified between order and genus. A family may be divided into subfamilies, which are intermediate ranks between the ranks of family and genus. The official family names are Latin in origin; however, popular names are often used: for example, walnut trees and hickory trees belong to the family Juglandaceae, but that family is commonly referred to as the "walnut family". What belongs to a family—or if a described family should be recognized at all—are proposed and determined by practicing taxonomists. There are no hard rules for describing or recognizing a family, but in plants, they can be characterized on the basis of both vegetative and reproductive features of plant species. Taxonomists often take different positions about descriptions, and there may be no broad consensus across the scientific community for some time. The publishing of new data and opin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Colony (biology)
In biology, a colony is composed of two or more conspecific individuals living in close association with, or connected to, one another. This association is usually for mutual benefit such as stronger defense or the ability to attack bigger prey. Colonies can form in various shapes and ways depending on the organism involved. For instance, the bacterial colony is a cluster of identical cells (clones). These colonies often form and grow on the surface of (or within) a solid medium, usually derived from a single parent cell. Colonies, in the context of development, may be composed of two or more unitary (or solitary) organisms or be modular organisms. Unitary organisms have determinate development (set life stages) from zygote to adult form and individuals or groups of individuals (colonies) are visually distinct. Modular organisms have indeterminate growth forms (life stages not set) through repeated iteration of genetically identical modules (or individuals), and it can be diffi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Polyp (zoology)
A polyp in zoology is one of two forms found in the phylum Cnidaria, the other being the medusa. Polyps are roughly cylindrical in shape and elongated at the axis of the vase-shaped body. In solitary polyps, the aboral (opposite to oral) end is attached to the substrate by means of a disc-like holdfast called a pedal disc, while in colonies of polyps it is connected to other polyps, either directly or indirectly. The oral end contains the mouth, and is surrounded by a circlet of tentacles. Classes In the class Anthozoa, comprising the sea anemones and corals, the individual is always a polyp; in the class Hydrozoa, however, the individual may be either a polyp or a medusa, with most species undergoing a life cycle with both a polyp stage and a medusa stage. In class Scyphozoa, the medusa stage is dominant, and the polyp stage may or may not be present, depending on the family. In those scyphozoans that have the larval planula metamorphose into a polyp, the po ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tentacle
In zoology, a tentacle is a flexible, mobile, and elongated organ present in some species of animals, most of them invertebrates. In animal anatomy, tentacles usually occur in one or more pairs. Anatomically, the tentacles of animals work mainly like muscular hydrostats. Most forms of tentacles are used for grasping and feeding. Many are sensory organs, variously receptive to touch, vision, or to the smell or taste of particular foods or threats. Examples of such tentacles are the eyestalks of various kinds of snails. Some kinds of tentacles have both sensory and manipulatory functions. A tentacle is similar to a cirrus, but a cirrus is an organ that usually lacks the tentacle's strength, size, flexibility, or sensitivity. A nautilus has cirri, but a squid has tentacles. Invertebrates Molluscs Many molluscs have tentacles of one form or another. The most familiar are those of the pulmonate land snails, which usually have two sets of tentacles on the head: when exte ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Corallite
A corallite is the skeletal cup, formed by an individual stony coral polyp, in which the polyp sits and into which it can retract. The cup is composed of aragonite, a crystalline form of calcium carbonate, and is secreted by the polyp. Corallites vary in size, but in most colonial corals they are less than in diameter. The inner surface of the corallite is known as the calyx. The vertical blades inside the calyx are known as septa and in some species, these ridges continue outside the corallite wall as costae. Where there is no corallite wall, the blades are known as septocostae. The septa, costae and septocostae may have ornamentation in the form of teeth and may be thick, thin or variable in size. Sometimes there are paliform lobes, in the form of rods or blades, rising from the inner margins of the septa. These may form a neat circle called the paliform crown. The septa do not usually unite in the centre of the corallite, instead they form a columella, a tangled mass of i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
