Alcyoniidae

Sarcophyton trocheliophorum

Leather corals ( Alcyoniidae ) are a family of flowers animals ( Anthozoa ). The species are animal colonies consisting of many individual polyps.

Features

They grow branched, tree -shaped, lobed, crusty or finger- shaped. The Einzelpolyp, like all animals of the subclass ( Alcyonaria ) eight feathery tentacles, and the Gastralraum is eight longitudinal walls ( septa ) divided into eight chambers. In many species, the colonies have even regressed over hose polyps ( Siphonozoide ) whose job it is to pump water into the body of the colony or deflate. The leather corals can stretch and thereby stabilize.

In contrast to the stony corals ( Scleractinia ) from the subclass Hexacorallia leather corals do not have a solid calcareous skeleton, but have mostly as strengthening elements small spicules ( sclerites ) in the body.

Leather corals live in a endosymbiosis with unicellular symbiotic algae ( zooxanthellae ).

They are predominantly of brown, yellow, or greenish color.

Dissemination

Leather corals are found in the Indo-Pacific region, most species live in inner reefs in warm, shallow water. They can withstand the temperature fluctuations, changes in salinity and the pH value, which can be found here by the tide or tropical storms, often better than stony corals ( Scleractinia ). Only a few species live in cold water or in the deep sea.

Many leather coral species can be kept in saltwater aquariums and are easier for beginners to keep as stony corals. They often reach enormous sizes here.

Genera

• Acrophytum Hickson, 1900
• Alcyonium Linnaeus, 1758
• Cladiella Gray, 1869
• Drifa Danielssen, 1886
• Eleutherobia Puetter, 1900
• Litophyton Forskål, 1775
• Lobophytum Marenzeller, 1886
• Lobularia Savigny
• Malacacanthus Thomson, 1910
• Minabea Utinomi, 1957
• Paraminabea Williams & Alderslade, 1999
• Parerythropodium Kuekenthal, 1916
• Sarcophyton Lesson, 1834
• Sinularia May, 1898
• Stereonephthya
• Umbellulifera Thomson & Dean, 1931
• Verseveldtia Williams, 1990