Palythoa Lamouroux, 1816

Irei, Yuka, Sinniger, Frederic & Reimer, James Davis, 2015, Descriptions of two azooxanthellate Palythoa species (Subclass Hexacorallia, Order Zoantharia) from the Ryukyu Archipelago, southern Japan, ZooKeys 478, pp. 1-26 : 5

Taxon classification Animalia Zoantharia Sphenopidae

Genus Palythoa Lamouroux, 1816

Type species.

Palythoa mammillosa (Ellis & Solander, 1786).

Description.

Colonial brachycnemic zoantharians with heavily sand-incrusted ectoderm and mesoglea. Occasionally solitary polyps are also seen.

Remarks.

Various authors have suggested to include the genus Protopalythoa Verrill, 1900 over the past century based on both morphological ( Pax 1910, Ryland and Lancaster 2003) and molecular data ( Burnett et al. 1997, Reimer et al. 2006a). Polyps of Palythoa are embedded in a well-developed coenenchyme (= “immersae”, Pax 1910) while those of Protopalythoa are more free and clear of the coenenchyme (= “intermediate” or “liberae”, Pax 1910). In this study, we consider Protopalythoa to be included within Palythoa . In general, polyps are firmly attached to stones or reef rocks. Currently, approximately 130 nominal species have been described ( Palythoa + Protopalythoa , Reimer 2014b, c) although some studies have suggested the presence of many synonyms ( Burnett et al. 1997, Reimer et al. 2004, Reimer et al. 2012a). All described species are zooxanthellate with the exception of Palythoa macmurrichi (Haddon & Shackleton, 1891) (see Remarks below).