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Madrepora

Linne, 1758, p. 793

Type Species

M. oculata Linnaeus, 1758, p. 798, no fig.; Subsequent Designation Verrill, 1901, p. 110

Type Specimen: Holotype; ; Lost; Unknown

Type Locality: Recent: Mediterranean

Type species described by Cairns (1979) and Zibrowius (1980).

Classification

Synonyms

Diagnosis

Corallum colonial, sympodial in growth form; coenosteum dense, no costae; axial corallites absent; corallites filled internally with stereome; P2 sometimes present; columella spongy of absent.

Remarks

Madrepora was the genus name on which the ordinal name Madreporaria (first suggested by Milne Edwards, 1857) was based. Van der Land (2003) graphed the chronological replacement of the popular use of the name Madreporaria with Scleractinia (first proposed by Bourne, 1900), the change over occurring in about 1965. This is one of the approximately dozen species of framework building deep-water corals, and also one of about a dozen species with a cosmopolitan distribution. Five Recent species (Cairns et al., 1999) and about 30 nominal fossil species (Filkorn, 1994).

This page has been in preparation since 08-Oct-2008 15:21

This version was contributed by Rosemarie Baron-Szabo on 19-Apr-2017 13:27.

Page authors are: Stephen D. Cairns Jarek Stolarski Rosemarie Baron-Szabo. Please contact the editor if you would like to contribute to the diagnosis of this taxon.

The editor is: Stephen D. Cairns


Madrepora oculata Linnaeus, 1758, colony covering a tube of Eunice sp. on its proximal part.
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Madrepora oculata Linnaeus, 1758, distal branch.
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Madrepora oculata forma beta, Linnaeus, 1758
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