Marine Species Identification Portal : Genus Sclerobelemnon

Kolliker, 1872

Sclerobelemnon burgeri

Type species: Sclerobelemnon schmeltzii (Muller, 1776)

Total number of species estimated: 5

Description: Colonies narrow and arrow-shaped or stout and club-shaped. Symmetry of rachis is bilateral throughout, sometimes not distinctly so. Axis throughout most of the length of the colony. Polyp leaves absent. Autozooids in two to several longitudinal rows on both sides of rachis. Sipnonozooids present as minute swellings sparsely to densely distributed between or below the autozooids, often in short longitudinal rows. Sclerites are plates or minute ovals or rods, bisquit- or irregularly-shaped, margins sometimes with denticles. Sclerites not three-flanged. Zooxanthellae not reported.

Habitat: Sandy flats or slopes adjacent to reefs, also in deep water.

Range: Indo-West Pacific and western Atlantic (Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean sea); Red Sea to Japan and New guinea; 10-472 meters in depth. The highest diversity of species is in the western Pacific.

Ecology: Some species are strictly nocturnal: buried and hidden in the sand during the day; or with the rachis and polyps extended above the surface of the sand at night.

Genus Sclerobelemnon