Heliopora

Heliopora is a genus of cnidarian in the monotypic family Helioporidae. It is a reef building hard coral but belongs to the subclass Octocorallia and is therefore most closely related to soft corals, sea pens, fan corals and sea whips and not to the main reef-building Scleractinian corals, which belong to subclass Hexacorallia. Currently only three species are known, one of which is known only from fossils:[1]

  • Heliopora coerulea (Pallas, 1766) - blue coral
  • Heliopora fijiensis† Hoffmeister, 1945
  • Heliopora hiberniana Richards, Yasuda, Kikuchi, Foster, Mitsuyuki, Stat, Suyama & Wilson, 2018[2]

Heliopora
Heliopora coerulea
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Cnidaria
Class: Anthozoa
Order: Helioporacea
Family: Helioporidae
Moseley, 1876
Genus: Heliopora
de Blainville, 1830

References
  1. "WoRMS - World Register of Marine Species - Heliopora de Blainville, 1830". www.marinespecies.org. Retrieved 2018-08-08.
  2. Wilson, Nerida G.; Suyama, Yoshihisa; Stat, Michael; Chika Mitsuyuki; Foster, Taryn; Kikuchi, Taisei; Yasuda, Nina; Richards, Zoe T. (2018-10-26). "Integrated evidence reveals a new species in the ancient blue coral genus Heliopora (Octocorallia)". Scientific Reports. 8 (1): 15875. Bibcode:2018NatSR...815875R. doi:10.1038/s41598-018-32969-z. ISSN 2045-2322. PMC 6203795. PMID 30367122.
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