Poritidae is a

family Family (from la, familia) is a Social group, group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or Affinity (law), affinity (by marriage or other relationship). The purpose of the family is to maintain the well-being of its ...

of stony corals. Members of the family 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 au ...

hermatypic Hermatypic corals are those corals in the order Scleractinia which build reefs by depositing hard calcareous material for their skeletons, forming the stony framework of the reef. Corals that do not contribute to coral reef development are referred ...

(reef-building) corals. They are variable in size and form but most are massive, laminar or ramose as well as branching and encrusting. The

corallite A corallite is the skeletal cup, formed by an individual stony coral polyp, in which the polyp sits and into which it can retract. The cup is composed of aragonite, a crystalline form of calcium carbonate, and is secreted by the polyp. Corallit ...

s are compact with very little

coenosteum In corals, the coenosteum is the stony skeletal material secreted by the coenosarc, the layer of living material lying between the corallites (the stony cups in which the polyps sit). The coenosteum is composed of aragonite Aragonite is a carbo ...

covering the skeleton. The walls of the corallites and the

septa The Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (SEPTA) is a regional public transportation authority that operates bus, rapid transit, commuter rail, light rail, and electric trolleybus services for nearly 4 million people in five coun ...

are porous. J.E.N. Veron considers the family is not a natural grouping but is a miscellaneous collection of genera that do not fit well elsewhere.

Genera

The World Register of Marine Species includes the following

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 nomenclat ...

in the family:Poritid Corals, Family Poritidae
WetWebMedia.com. Retrieved 2011-12-18. * '' Bernardpora'' Kitano & Fukami, 2014 * ''

Goniopora ''Goniopora'', often called flowerpot coral, is a genus of colonial Scleractinia, stony coral found in lagoons and turbid water conditions. ''Goniopora'' have numerous daisy-like polyps that extend outward from the base, each tipped with 24 ...

'' de Blainville, 1830 - 29 species. The polyps have 24 tentacles. * ''

Porites ''Porites'' is a genus of stony coral; they are small polyp stony (SPS) corals. They are characterised by a finger-like morphology. Members of this genus have widely spaced calices, a well-developed wall reticulum and are bilaterally symmetric ...

'' - 77 species. * '' Stylaraea'' - Monotypic. The only species is '' Stylaraea punctata''.

References

Scleractinia Cnidarian families {{scleractinia-stub