Placotrochides Alcock, 1902

Cairns, Stephen D., 2016, A key to the genera and species of the transversely-dividing Flabellidae (Anthozoa, Scleractinia, Flabellidae), with a guide to the literature, and the description of two new species, ZooKeys 562, pp. 1-48 : 23

Taxon classification Animalia Scleractinia Flabellidae

Genus Placotrochides Alcock, 1902

Placotrochides Alcock, 1902: 33.- Zibrowius 1974: 20, 23, 26.- Cairns 1989b: 78 (synonymy, discussion); 1995: 116; 2004: 307 (key to species).- Cairns and Kitahara 2012: 13 (key to genus).

Flabellum : Vaughan and Wells 1943: 226 (in part).

Diagnosis.

Asexual reproduction by apical transverse division of corallum, resulting in distal anthocyathus and basal anthocaulus. Corallum usually laterally compressed and subcylindrical, having a low edge angle; thecal edges rounded and do not bear spines or crests; calicular outline often asymmetrical. Columella absent of represented by a fusion of the lower, axial edges of the larger septa. Anthocaulus stereome-reinforced.

Discussion.

Placotrochides differs from Truncatoflabellum by having a non-spinose compressed-cylindrical corallum and a stereome-reinforced anthocaulus.

Distribution.

Western and central Pacific, southwestern Indian Ocean, northern and southwestern Atlantic, 80-1628 m.

Type species.

Placotrochides scaphula Alcock, 1902, by subsequent designation ( Wells 1936).