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Hydrozoan corals Hydrozoan corals Where cantheybefound? Where What are the pictures? arethepictures? What aretheStylasteridae? What sea Conservation for the sea Conservation http://www.lophelia.org and fact-sheetwas This downloaded from 2003). & AWI, Ifremer Stylaster from athe of branching and intricate Seabight(©cupine Ifremer &AWI, 2003). Thedelicate of variouscolours among the white outas stand a bright Lace corals 2003). AWI, Porc toaboulder, attached ( coral growth lace of Fresh from top: Images than more do notoftengrow But of acalcareousskeleton. withOne similarityshared the perfo which and havepolyps Allmembers the Scleractinia. Hydrozoan moreclosely tojellyfish coralsare than related Greenland andIceland). within t Porcupine Bankand stony as coralreefs,such Stylaster westAtlantic. Islands andthe seen within gardens. octocorals major oc occur inmany ofthe Stylaster dominantcold-water genera The ‘fire corals’. is sostrongthatsometropi thecora stinging cellsanddefend defensive polypspolyps. These water, zooplankton fromthe poly functions. Alargefeeding Hydrozoan twodifferen coralshave theyskeletons they produce, known dueto aslacecorals This similar tostony corals. At firstglancemembersof found in the Indo-west pacifi found intheIndo-west , and , collected from the Porcupine (© Porcupine the Seabight from , collected Distichopora Pliobothrus Pliobothrus and

are alsofrequently foundamong along the western along thewestern the Stylasteridae appearverythe Stylasteridae cal Stylasteridae areknowncal Stylasteridae as Pliobothrus is only superfic he DenmarkStrait(between c, NorthPacific,Galapagos is surrounded byis surrounded many smaller branched calcified the delicately rm differentfunctions. a few tens of centimetres. of a few tens are actually hydrozoan corals. are actually upine Seabight (© Ifremer & (© Ifremer upine Seabight United Kingdom Project. United Kingdom eans of the world and are often world andareoften eans ofthe the skeletons aredelicateand the skeletons of the arecolonial of theHydrozoa Scleractinia isthe production p or gastrozooid collects p orgastrozooid an octocoral garden, Por- garden, anoctocoral produced forthe Deep- produced or dactylozooids containthe or dactylozooids Distichopora within the Stylasteridaeare the within l from predators. The sting l frompredators.The t polyps, bothwith distinct t polyps, . Stylaster Stylaster ial, commonly slope ofthe species are Stylaster species )

very different.. different.. very but theyare stony corals, tobe corals lace calcified the mistaking for forgiven you couldbe glance At first