Family Alcyoniidae Lamouroux, 1812

Diagnosis. Membranous or more or less fleshy, massive colonies. The latter with a basal part, the stalk, and a distal part bearing the anthocodiae, the polyparium. Sclerites are often less than one mm long, but they can be over 10 mm. They include spindles, clubs, radiates, and double heads. Polyps monomorphic or dimorphic and the autozooids are retractile. This family has a more or less global distribution. It is especially speciose in the Indo- Pacific, but so far absent in the shallow waters of the tropical western Atlantic (Williams 2003; Fabricius & Alderslade 2001).