Poritidae is a
family 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 ...
.
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 a ...
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 covering the skeleton. The walls of the corallites and the
septa 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'' de Blainville, 1830 - 29 species. The polyps have 24 tentacles.
* '' Porites'' - 77 species.
* ''Stylaraea
''Stylaraea'' is a genus of marine stony corals in the family Poritidae. It is a monotypic genus and the only species is ''Stylaraea punctata''. This coral is native to shallow tidal pools in tropical parts of the Indian and Pacific Oceans.
De ...
'' - Monotypic. The only species is ''Stylaraea punctata
''Stylaraea'' is a genus of marine stony corals in the family Poritidae. It is a monotypic genus and the only species is ''Stylaraea punctata''. This coral is native to shallow tidal pools in tropical parts of the Indian and Pacific Oceans.
De ...
''.
References
Scleractinia
Cnidarian families
{{scleractinia-stub