| 翻訳と辞書 |
| Melithaea ochracea ： ウィキペディア英語版 |
Melithaea ochracea
''Melithaea ochracea'' is a species of colonial soft coral in the family Melithaeidae, commonly known as knotted fan coral. It grows in tree-like fans on coral reefs in the South China Sea. It is used in the jewellery industry under the name red spongy coral.
== Description ==
Colonies of ''Melithaea ochracea'' are arborescent and usually grow to about long although much larger specimens can be found. They grow in one plane and have a branching, fan-shaped structure. The main skeletal stalk and branches are jointed, with swellings at the larger joints. The internodes are composed of hard, calcareous material while the joints are flexible and made of a horny material. The skeleton is covered by a flexible membrane, the mesoglea, which contains minute calcareous spicules or sclerites. The identity of these is important for distinguishing between different closely related species. In ''Melithaea ochracea'', they include capstans, double discs, disc-spindles and unilaterally spinose spindles, plain spindles, clubs and anthocodial sclerites. Three sides of the branches are densely covered in calyces, dome shaped perforated structures from which the polyps protrude. Colonies vary in colour but tend to be shades of yellow, orange, red and white, sometimes with contrasting colours for the calyces and polyps. It is an azooxanthellate coral and does not contain symbiotic unicellular algae in its tissues.〔(''Melithaea'' ) Marine Species Identification Portal. Retrieved 2012-02-22.〕 In Singapore, it sometimes grows close to the low tide mark at depths of under where colonies grow larger than deeper water specimens and mostly have yellow branches and red calyces. At greater depths, down to , the colonies are smaller and have different colour combinations.〔
抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』
■ウィキペディアで「Melithaea ochracea」の詳細全文を読む
スポンサード リンク
| 翻訳と辞書 : 翻訳のためのインターネットリソース |
Copyright(C) kotoba.ne.jp 1997-2016. All Rights Reserved.
|
|