Melithaea Milne Edwards, 1857

Samimi-Namin, Kaveh, van Ofwegen, Leen P. & McFadden, Catherine S., 2016, A new species of Melithaea (Anthozoa, Octocorallia, Melithaeidae) from the Oman Sea, off Oman, ZooKeys 623, pp. 15-29 : 19

Taxon classification Animalia Alcyonacea Melithaeidae

Genus Melithaea Milne Edwards, 1857

Diagnosis.

Colonies with segmented axis, and swollen nodes and straight internodes containing cigar-shaped sclerites. Densely branched in one or more planes, forming large fans or forming bushes. Sclerites of coenenchymal surface are spindles, thorn-clubs, double discs, leaf clubs, and foliate spheroids. Polyps monomorphic, small and retractile. Calyces can be low or tall. Polyps contain spindle-like and club-like forms arranged as collaret and points, with dragon wing sclerites (flattened, more or less twisted, boomerang-shaped platelets commonly with the convex edge serrated near the wider end; present in the proximal part of tentacles/see Grasshoff 1999, 2000) in the tentacles. The colonies can be yellow, orange, red, dark purple, pink, and white. Axes are usually coloured, often red. Azooxanthellate.