A New Record of Solitary Coral, Paracyathus rotundatus (Anthozoa: Scleractinia: Caryophylliidae), from Korea

Abstract

Through a taxonomic study on solitary corals collected from subtidal zones of South and East Seas from 2019 to 2022, Paracyathus rotundatus, an unrecorded species belonging to family Caryophylliidae, is newly added to the anthozoan fauna of Korea. In addition, comparing partial 16S rRNA sequences with a length of 269 bp according to color variation clarified that there were no sequence differences among specimens with color variation, indicating that the color variation is due to intraspecific variation. As a result of this study, a total of 7 genera and 8 species belonging to the Caryophylliidae family have been reported in Korean waters so far.