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Mussismilia
''Mussismilia'' is a genus of stony corals in the subfamily Faviinae of the family Mussidae. This genus is restricted to the Atlantic Ocean off the coasts of Brazil. Description ''Mussismilia'' is a colonial coral. Budding is always intracalicular, occurring inside the oral disc of the polyp, within the whorl of tentacles. The corallites are phaceloid or subplocoid, with one to three centres being linked. When coenosteum is present, there is a distinctive double wall. The columella is discontinuous. The septa are porous and have unique, multi-directional teeth formed of twisted threads. The columella is spongy, and the columellar teeth are different in size and shape from the septal teeth. Species The World Register of Marine Species lists the following three species : *''Mussismilia braziliensis'' (Verrill, 1868) *''Mussismilia harttii'' (Verrill, 1868) *''Mussismilia hispida ''Mussismilia'' is a genus of stony corals in the subfamily Faviinae of the family Mussidae. This ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mussismilia Harttii
''Mussismilia'' is a genus of stony corals in the subfamily Faviinae of the family Mussidae. This genus is restricted to the Atlantic Ocean off the coasts of Brazil. Description ''Mussismilia'' is a colonial coral. Budding is always intracalicular, occurring inside the oral disc of the polyp, within the whorl of tentacles. The corallites are phaceloid or subplocoid, with one to three centres being linked. When coenosteum is present, there is a distinctive double wall. The columella is discontinuous. The septa are porous and have unique, multi-directional teeth formed of twisted threads. The columella is spongy, and the columellar teeth are different in size and shape from the septal teeth. Species The World Register of Marine Species lists the following three species : *''Mussismilia braziliensis'' (Verrill, 1868) *'' Mussismilia harttii'' (Verrill, 1868) *''Mussismilia hispida ''Mussismilia'' is a genus of stony corals in the subfamily Faviinae of the family Mussidae. ... [...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 polyph ... [...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 c ... [...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 organism ... [...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 opi ... [...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 Zoology ()The pronunciation of zoology as is usually regarded as nonstandard, though it is not uncommon. is the branch of biology that studies the animal kingdom, including the structure, embryology, evolution, classification, habits, and ... is one of two forms found in the phylum Cnidaria, the other being the medusa (biology), 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 (biology), substrate by means of a disc-like holdfast (biology), holdfast called a pedal disc, while in colony (biology), 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 (biology), class Anthozoa, comprising the sea anemones and corals, the individual is always a polyp; in the class Hydrozoa, however, the indi ... [...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 e ... [...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 In vertebrate anatomy, ribs ( la, costae) are the long curved bones which form the rib cage, part of the axial skeleton. In most tetrapods, ribs surround the chest, enabling the lungs to expand and thus facilitate breathing by expanding the c .... 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 l ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
