The Meandrinidae are a
family
Family (from la, familia) is a group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or affinity (by marriage or other relationship). The purpose of the family is to maintain the well-being of its members and of society. Idea ...
of
stony corals
Scleractinia, also called stony corals or hard corals, are marine animals in the phylum Cnidaria that build themselves a hard skeleton. The individual animals are known as polyps and have a cylindrical body crowned by an oral disc in which a mo ...
. The name comes from the Greek, ''maiandros'' meaning "meandering", referring to the miniature, winding valleys found between the
corallites. Fossil corals in this family have been found dating back to the
Cretaceous
The Cretaceous ( ) is a geological period that lasted from about 145 to 66 million years ago (Mya). It is the third and final period of the Mesozoic Era, as well as the longest. At around 79 million years, it is the longest geological period of ...
.
[Family Meandrinidae]
Classification of Scleractinian (Stony) Corals. Retrieved 2011-12-20.
Description
The Meandrinidae are
colonial
Colonial or The Colonial may refer to:
* Colonial, of, relating to, or characteristic of a colony or colony (biology)
Architecture
* American colonial architecture
* French Colonial
* Spanish Colonial architecture
Automobiles
* Colonial (1920 a ...
corals and form part of the
reef- building community. They contain
zooxanthellae, microscopic algae
symbionts
Symbiosis (from Greek , , "living together", from , , "together", and , bíōsis, "living") is any type of a close and long-term biological interaction between two different biological organisms, be it mutualistic, commensalistic, or parasit ...
that provide them with energy. They occur in various different shapes, including massive, encrusting, columnar, and phaceloid (with tubular corallites united at the base). Although superficially resembling members of the family
Faviidae, the corallites of meandrinids have solid, nonporous walls and evenly spaced, solid septa. Most of the genera are found only in the Atlantic Ocean, but ''Ctenella'' is
endemic
Endemism is the state of a species being found in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found els ...
to the
Red Sea
The Red Sea ( ar, البحر الأحمر - بحر القلزم, translit=Modern: al-Baḥr al-ʾAḥmar, Medieval: Baḥr al-Qulzum; or ; Coptic: ⲫⲓⲟⲙ ⲛ̀ϩⲁϩ ''Phiom Enhah'' or ⲫⲓⲟⲙ ⲛ̀ϣⲁⲣⲓ ''Phiom ǹšari''; ...
and parts of the Indian Ocean.
[
]
Genera
The World Register of Marine Species includes these genera
Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms as well as viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus comes above species and below family. In binomial ...
in the family:[
*'' Dendrogyra''
*'' Dichocoenia''
*'' Eusmilia''
*'' Meandrina'' Lamarck, 1801
]
References
Scleractinia
Cnidarian families
{{scleractinia-stub