Acabaria

Acabaria
The multicoloured sea fan, Acabaria rubra
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Cnidaria
Class:	Anthozoa
Subclass:	Octocorallia
Order:	Alcyonacea
Suborder:	Scleraxonia
Family:	Melithaeidae
Genus:	Acabaria Gray, 1859
Species:	see text

Acabaria is a genus of corals in the family Melithaeidae.^[1] Members of the genus are found in tropical waters in the Indo-Pacific. The type species is Acabaria divaricata.^[2]

Description

Members of the genus Clathraria are arborescent colonial corals forming fans or bushes. The axis or main skeletal "trunk" is jointed, there being nodes, flexible horny joints, separated by internodes composed of hard, calcareous material. The branches divide off at the nodes which are often swollen. The minute calcareous spicules in the flexible membrane called the mesoglea that covers the skeleton are called sclerites. The identity of these spicules is important for identification purposes and in this genus they are predominantly spindles. In the corallites, the cups surrounding the polyps, the sclerites are clubs. Members of this genus do not have the unicellular symbiotic algae Zooxanthellae in their tissues that many other corals do. Colonies vary in colour but tend to be white or shades of yellow, ochre, orange, pink and brown.^[2]

Species

Species in the genus include:

References