General Coral vocabulary

Question 1

Hydrozoa

Answer 1

a class of coelenterates which includes hydras and Portuguese men-of-war. Many of them are colonial and some kinds have both polypoid and medusoid phases.

Question 2

Anthozoa

Answer 2

a large class of sedentary marine coelenterates that includes the sea anemones and corals. They are either solitary or colonial, and have a central mouth surrounded by tentacles.

Question 3

Octocorallia

Answer 3

Octocorallia (also known as octocorals, or in earlier times “Alcyonaria”) are a subclass of the class Anthozoa, in the phylum Cnidaria. They are sessile polyp-bearing animals with a mobile larval phase that are only found in marine systems. The distinguishing characteristic of this subclass is that their polyps always bear eight tentacles (hence octo-coral), which are usually (but not always) fringed along both edges by one or more rows of pinnules. The gastrovascular cavities are typically subdivided by eight septa.

Question 4

Hexacorallia

Answer 4

Hexacorallia is a class of Anthozoa comprising approximately 4,300 species of aquatic organisms formed of polyps, generally with 6-fold symmetry. It includes all of the stony corals, most of which are colonial and reef-forming, as well as all sea anemones, and zoanthids, arranged within five extant orders.

Question 5

Ceriantipatheria

Answer 5

Tube-dwelling anemones or ceriantharians look very similar to sea anemones but belong to an entirely different class of anthozoans. They are solitary, living buried in soft sediments. Tube anemones live inside and can withdraw into tubes, which are composed of a fibrous material made from secreted mucus and threads of nematocyst-like organelles known as ptychocysts.

Question 6

Planula

Answer 6

free-swimming or crawling larval type common in many species of the phylum Cnidaria

Question 7

Mesenteries

Answer 7

a radial infolding of the fleshy body wall, forming a partition in the gut. In this central cavity the mesenteries alternate with the skeletal septa.

Question 8

Septa/septum

Answer 8

one of the radiating vertical plates lying within the corallite wall

Question 9

Corallum/ Coralla

Answer 9

entire coral skeleton.

Question 10

Corallite

Answer 10

skeleton for an individual polyp.

Question 11

Calyx/calcies

Answer 11

concave depression that houses the polyp.

Question 12

Coenosteum

Answer 12

skeletal material between walls of adjacent corallites

Question 13

Costa/ Costae

Answer 13

extensions of the septa outside the wall of the corallite

Question 14

Columella

Answer 14

central structure of the calyx formed by fusion of the
lower elements of the septa

Question 15

Tuberculae

Answer 15

larger-than-polyp bumps occurring in the coenosteum

Question 16

Verrucae

Answer 16

Larger-than-polyp bumps composed of several corallites

Question 17

Theca

Answer 17

Wall of the polyp.

Question 18

Nematocysts

Answer 18

the dart-shaped cnidae with spines on hollow tubules that are used for prey piercing and venom injection

Question 19

Spirocysts

Answer 19

This is a lasso-like string that is fired at prey. It wraps around the prey. Is used for prey entanglement in Anthozoa

Question 20

Ptychocysts

Answer 20

This puts out a sticky substance, which is used to hold on to prey. Are found exclusively in the cerianthid sea anemones

Question 21

Papillae

Answer 21

smaller-than-polyp, nipple-like bumps on the surface of
the skeleton