Science Has Barely Scratched The Surface For Zoanthid Species

By Shane Graber

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The unexamined diversity in the ‘Coral Triangle’

Research on zoantharians, a group of animals related to corals and anemones, by researchers James Reimer of the University of the Ryukyus in Okinawa, Japan, Angelo Poliseno of Universita Politecnica delle Marche in Italy, and Bert Hoeksema from Naturalis Biodiversity Center, Netherlands, has demonstrated how little we know about marine diversity in the so-called “center of marine biodiversity” located in the central Indo-Pacific Ocean. The study was published in the open access journal ZooKeys.

The researchers utilized previously collected specimens from Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia, and Papua New Guinea, combined with field images from Dr. Hoeksema to examine species of Zoantharia, marine cnidarians commonly found in shallow subtropical and tropical oceans throughout the world.

“The central Indo-Pacific is commonly called the “Coral Triangle” due to its high hard coral diversity, in fact the highest in the world” said Reimer, “but in fact for many groups of marine animals we really have little concrete information on diversity, or numbers of species, in this region.”

Previous research included brief …read more

Read more here: Advanced Aquarist