
Stony Corals
Scleractinia
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 mouth is fringed with tentacles. Although some species are solitary, most are colonial. The founding polyp settles and starts to secrete calcium carbonate to protect its soft body. Solitary corals can be as much as...
39 branches of this order, most-observed first

Merulinidae
familyMerulinidae

Table and Staghorn Corals
familyAcroporidae

Poritidae
familyPoritidae

Dendrophylliidae
familyDendrophylliidae

Pocilloporidae
familyPocilloporidae

Faviidae
familyFaviidae

Plate Corals
familyFungiidae

Agariciidae
familyAgariciidae

Lobophylliidae
familyLobophylliidae

Euphylliidae
familyEuphylliidae

Rhizangiidae
familyRhizangiidae

Caryophylliidae
familyCaryophylliidae

Plerogyridae
familyPlerogyridae

Montastraeidae
familyMontastraeidae

Meandrinidae
familyMeandrinidae

Astrangiidae
familyAstrangiidae

Plesiastreidae
familyPlesiastreidae

Cladocora
genusCladocora

Pachyseridae
familyPachyseridae

Leptastreidae
familyLeptastreidae

Psammocoridae
familyPsammocoridae

Diploastraeidae
familyDiploastraeidae

Oculinidae
familyOculinidae

Astrocoeniidae
familyAstrocoeniidae

Coscinaraeidae
familyCoscinaraeidae

Oulastreidae
familyOulastreidae

Solenastrea
genusSolenastrea

Flabellidae
familyFlabellidae

Fungiacyathidae
familyFungiacyathidae

Turbinoliidae
familyTurbinoliidae

Anthemiphylliidae
familyAnthemiphylliidae
Guyniidae
familyGuyniidae
Gardineriidae
familyGardineriidae
Deltocyathidae
familyDeltocyathidae
Schizocyathidae
familySchizocyathidae
Agathiphylliidae
familyAgathiphylliidae
Variabilifavia
genusVariabilifavia

Micrabaciidae
familyMicrabaciidae
Stenocyathidae
familyStenocyathidae
Where it lives
Recorded sightings
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geo-referenced records in GBIF, from museums, herbaria and field observers.
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In the stacks
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Every page naming Scleractinia in the Biodiversity Heritage Library →
This page is assembled live from iNaturalist, GBIF, Wikipedia, the Source Library and the Internet Archive. It is not yet part of the hand-edited codex. iNaturalist taxon 47532.