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Scleralcyonacea

Scleralcyonacea is an order of the class Octocorallia.

It combines the traditional taxa Calcaxonia (except the genus Isis), Pennatulacea and Helioporacea, as well as a part of Scleraxonia and a part of Stolonifera, and the genera Ideogorgia and Parasphaerasclera. See below for a more detailed description.

Etymology

Scleralcyonacea was named after Greek (', ) and former coral order Alcyonacea, as most of its members contain either an axial skeleton made of calcium carbonate or sclerites fused with calcitic material.

Taxonomy

A clade combining (primarily) the Calcaxonia, the Pennatulacea and the Helioporacea was identified (but not named) as early as in a 2006 study and in several later studies; it was usually called informally the Calcaxonia-Pennatulacea clade or the Pennatulacea-Calcaxonia clade.

In 2019, G. C. Williams proposed (only optionally) calling the Calcaxonia-Pennatulacea clade Calcaxonia (sensu lato), but other authors did not adopt this naming proposal.

The phylogenetic study McFadden et al. 2022 assigned the name Scleralcyonacea and the rank of an order to the Calcaxonia-Pennatulacea clade. The study found Octocorallia to be divided into two monophyletic lineages (both identified already by some earlier studies), which the study established as the orders Scleralcyonacea and Malacalcyonacea. Scleralcyonacea was found to contain:

While the genus Isis was historically placed within Calcaxonia as a relative of Keratoisididae and Mopseidae, it was found to be unrelated, with the difference in internode growth patterns being identified as phylogenetically informative.

Children

Scleralcyonacea contains the monophyletic sea pens (superfamily Pennatuloidea) as well as 21 other families and two incertae sedis genera. The order includes the following:

Legend (traditional assignment of the taxa): Ca = Calcaxonia, Pe = Pennatulacea, He = Helioporacea, St = Stolonifera, Sc = Scleraxonia, Ho = Holaxonia (sensu stricto), Al = Alcyoniina.

References

Works cited

Bibliography

  • Taxonomic Study of Suborder Calcaxonia (Alcyonacea: Octocorallia: Anthozoa) from King Sejong Station, Antarctic. Song Jun-Im, Hwang Sung-Jin, Moon Haewon and An In-Young, Animal Systematics, 30 Apr 2012, Evolution and Diversity Volume 28, Issue2, pages 84~96,

External links