some info for ya
MARINE LIFE PROFILE:
SOUTH PACIFIC LACE CORALS
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Scientific name: Family Stylasteriidae
Distribution: Indo-West Pacific, Caribbean, tropical Western Atlantic
Size: variable, colonies 4-8 inches (10-20 cm) high
Diet: plankton
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The delicately-branching orange, red, or purple lace corals and their cousins, the stinging corals (Millipora), are more closely related to the notorious Portuguese man-of-war than they are to the true reef-building or stony corals. These coral forms are found throughout the Indo-Pacific, but do not occur in Hawai‘i.
The fragile branched colonies of the lace corals are fan-like and brightly colored. The color is deposited within the limestone skeleton and remains even after the animal tissue is gone. In contrast, the skeletons of reef-building corals are white and the color is found only in the living tissue. Despite their hard skeletons, the lace corals and their relatives are not major reef builders and their colonies never reach the sizes seen in most reef-building corals.
Lace corals do not have polyps like the reef-building corals, or their relatives the sea anemones. Instead, minute hair-like polyps are found in a single row of pores along the flattened edges of the branches. Potent stinging cells enable the lace coral's polyps to capture tiny food organisms from the plankton.
Lace corals lack the symbiotic plant partners (zooxanthellae) found the reef-building corals. So, they are not dependent upon light and can live where the reef-building corals cannot. Lace corals are most common on the deeper reef slope, in crevices and around the entrances to caves, or growing from the ceilings of ledges or undercut areas.
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Classification:
Kingdom Animalia
Phylum Cnidaria
Class Hydrozoa
Order Stylasterina
Family Stylasteriidae
Genus Sylaster
Genus Distichopora
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