Additional file 2.

Anatomy of Gardineria, Letepsammia and other extant scleractinian corals. The figure compares Gardineria hawaiiensis (A-E), Letepsammia formosissima (F-J), Fungiacyathus margaretae (K-O), and Acropora millepora (P-U) at the levels of skeleton macromorphology (first column), anatomy (second column) and histology (columns 3-4) (S-U, courtesy of Dr. Tracy Ainsworth). Color arrows indicate the following anatomical and histological details: black arrows, mouth/pharynx position on cross-sectioned polyps; gray arrows, septal position; pink arrows, spermaries, white arrows, calicoblastic ectoderm; yellow arrows, mesoglea; green arrows, mesogleal plates; red arrow, muscle fibers; dark blue arrows, zooxanthellae; light blue arrows, cnidae; orange arrows, mucocytes. All cross sections are stained with Alcian Blue/PAS or haematoxylin and eosin. Cnidae are shown on sections of tentacle acrospheres (E, J, O, U). Fungiacyathus margaretae and Acropora millepora were used as typical representatives of deep-water (azooxanthellate) and tropical shallow-water (zooxanthellate) Scleractinia respectively. Although the three deep-water species have significantly thicker mesoglea and mesogleal plates, and more abundant mucocytes than does the shallow water coral (A. millepora), G. hawaiiensis and L. formosissima are typical scleractinians in terms of all histological features examined.

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Stolarski et al. BMC Evolutionary Biology 2011 11:316   doi:10.1186/1471-2148-11-316