Actiniidae Rafinesque, 1815

Titus, Benjamin M., Bennett-Smith, Morgan F., Chiodo, Tommaso & Rodríguez, Estefanía, 2024, The clownfish-hosting sea anemones (Anthozoa: Actiniaria): updated nomenclature, biogeography, and practical field guide., Zootaxa 5506 (1), pp. 1-34 : 4

Family Actiniidae Rafinesque, 1815

In the revisionary work by England (1987), the clownfish-hosting species Entacmaea quadricolor was moved from family Actiniidae to the Stichodactylidae based on the presence of a type of cnidae (microbasic amastigophores) in the column, tentacles, or both regions in members of Stichodactylidae but not in those of Actiniidae . However, despite England’s (1987) claims, this type of cnidae is also present in the column and/or tentacles of other species within Actiniidae (e.g. Isoaulactinia , Phialoba , see Barragán et al. 2019) and thus this feature does not differentiate these families. This fact, together with recent molecular results that do not support a close relationship between E. quadricolor and members of Stichodactylidae ( Titus et al. 2019; Yap et al. 2021, 2023), we consider E. quadricolor within family Actiniidae until a comprehensive revision of the group is available.

The other fish-hosting taxon included within Actiniidae was the former Macrodactyla doorensis , which Fautin (2016) returned to the genus Condylactis Duchassaing de Fombressin & Michelotti, 1864 because the generic name Macrodactyla Haddon, 1898 had been claimed to be a junior homonym of a coleopteran genus and thus unavailable for use in sea anemones ( Fautin 2016, Neave 1940). However, Yap et al. (2023) clarified that the name Macrodactyla is not a junior homonym of a coleopteran genus and it can be retained as a genus name for sea anemones. In addition, Yap et al. (2023) showed that former M. doreensis is not closely related to the type species of Macrodactyla but nested within other species of Heteractis and created a new combination name for this species, Heteractis doreensis (Quoy & Gaimard, 1883) , based on molecular data.

Included Taxa

Entacmaea quadricolor (Leuckart in Ruppell & Leuckart, 1828)