Orbicella annularis
Species of coral
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Orbicella annularis, commonly known as the Boulder star coral, is a species of coral that lives in the western Atlantic Ocean and is the most thoroughly studied and most abundant species of reef-building coral in the Caribbean to date.[4] It also has a comprehensive fossil record within the Caribbean.[5][6] This species complex has long been considered a generalist that exists at depths between 0 and 80 metres (0 and 262 ft)[7] and grows into varying colony shapes (heads, columns, plates) in response to differing light conditions.[8] Only recently with the help of molecular techniques has O. annularis been shown to be a complex of at least three separate species.[9][10][11] Those species are divided into O. annularis, O. faveolata, and O. franksi. This coral was originally described as Montastraea annularis.
| Orbicella annularis | |
|---|---|
| |
Scientific classification  | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Cnidaria |
| Subphylum: | Anthozoa |
| Class: | Hexacorallia |
| Order: | Scleractinia |
| Family: | Merulinidae |
| Genus: | Orbicella |
| Species: | O. annularis |
| Binomial name | |
| Orbicella annularis (Ellis and Solander, 1786)[3] | |
| Synonyms[3] | |
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List
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