CLASSIFICATION OF MONTASTRAEA OR STONY CORAL
KINGDOM :- ANIMALIA ( Multicellular eukaryotic organisms)
PHYLUM :- COELENTRATA OR CNIDARIA (Tissue grade, diploblastic and acoelomate. )
CLASS :- ANTHOZOA OR ACTINOZOA (Only polypoid generation. sedentary, solitary, colonial.)
SUB-CLASS :- HEXACORALLIA (Tentacles and mesenteries in multiple of five or six.)
ORDER :- SCLERACTINIA (Stony corals with compact calcareous exoskeleton.)
FAMILY :- MONTASTRAEIDAE (Great star coral )
GENUS :- Montastraea
GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION
Found in U.S.A.; Florida and California.
HABIT AND HABITAT
Montastraea is a marine colonial, hexacorallian coelenterate coral.
GENERAL CHARACTERSTICS OF MONTASTRAEA OR STONY CORAL
- Commonly called as stony coral or star coral.
- Contains ectodermal, calcareous or calcium carbonate skeleton, called as corallium.
- Colony is compact and massive produced by buds, growing more or less parallel with each other.
- Skeleton is very hard like stone.
- Surface of the body contains closely-placed cups or corallites containing polyps.
- Zooids are separated by a solid coenosarc.
- Coenenchyma is produced by calcification of coenosarc which also gives rise to corallites. Corallites lie in close contact with each other.
- montastraea is a poreless coral reproducing by gemmation, fissiparous division and budding.
IDENTIFICATION
The animal contains hardened calcification and closely fitted caps for polyps and all above characters and hence it is Montastraea.
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