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Sea anemones, in the strict sense, constitute the Actiniaria , an order of subclass Hexacorallia (= Zoantharia) of cnidarian class Anthozoa. Animals belonging to some of the other orders of Hexacorallia may also be referred to as “anemones,” most commonly Ceriantharia, which should be termed “tube anemones,” Zoanthidea, for which there is no good common name but that may be referred to as “carpet polyps,” and Corallimorpharia, for which there is also no good common name but some of which are referred to as “mushroom polyps” or “mushroom anemones .” These are benthic animals, except for the planktonic larval stage possessed by most species and the rare floating anemone Minyas; some are infaunal or epibiotic. Actiniaria comprises most of the solitary skeletonless anthozoans; at just over 1000 (Fautin 2005), it has nearly as many species as Scleractinia (stony or “true” corals), the other dominant hexacorallian order. Although Actiniaria is characterized by the absence of attributes defining other hexacorallian orders and therefore has been hypothesized to be paraphyletic (e.g., Stephenson 1921), phylogenetic analyses of Anthozoa have found strong support for its monophyly, typically as the sister group to orders hexacorallian Antipatharia (black corals), Corallimorpharia, Scleractinia, and Zoanthidea (e.g., Berntson, France, and Mullineaux 1999, Won, Rho, and Song 2001, Daly, Lipscomb , and Allard 2002, Daly, Fautin, and Cappola 2003; but see Chen et al. 1995). We list 30 valid species of Actiniaria as having been recorded from the Gulf of Mexico. Members of Corallimorpharia, of which about 50 species are known, are morphologically intermediate between those of Actiniaria and Scleractinia: although a corallimorpharian polyp lacks a skeleton, its nematocysts and internal anatomy resemble those of corals. Its position has long been debated: Duerden (1898b) argued for its placement in Scleractinia, but until well into the twentieth century, Carlgren (e.g., 1921) considered it to be a member of Actiniaria; ultimately it was recognized as an order separate from both (e.g., Carlgren 1949). Most modern phylogenetic analyses, both morphological and molecular, find Corallimorpharia to be either the sister taxon of Scleractinia or nested within it (e.g., Schmidt 1974, Daly, Fautin, and Cappola 2003). Corallimorpharia likely is not monophyletic: its members fall into 2 morphological groups that appear also to differ in molecular 349 15 Actiniaria, Corallimorpharia, and Zoanthidea (Cnidaria) of the Gulf of Mexico Daphne Gail Fautin and Marymegan Daly  Actiniaria. After Hedgpeth 1954. 350 ~ Actiniaria, Corallimorpharia, and Zoanthidea (Cnidaria) System technology, type and other localities are displayed on maps and are searchable graphically or textually. Our checklist was assembled largely from this resource. It does not include some deep-sea records, for reasons explained in the following, nor that of Bunodactis? sp. in Carlgren and Hedgpeth (1952), because of the uncertainty of the identification and the possibility the young specimens belonged to one of the species they did list. No broad inventories of the anemones of the Gulf of Mexico exist except for that by Hedgpeth (1954) 50 years ago (curiously, it does not include some species found in a biotic survey centered on Port Aransas reported by Carlgren and Hedgpeth (1952)). In addition to those on our list, Hedgpeth’s (1954: 285) inventory of 16 actiniarian species that occur in the Gulf, which was compiled from the literature, includes Halcuriaspilatus McMurrich, 1893, Leipsiceras pollens (McMurrich, 1898), and Stephanauge spongicola (Verrill, 1883) from the “Tortugas (or Keys).” The only publication cited by Hedgpeth containing mention of these species, other than Carlgren’s (1949) catalog, is McMurrich (1898). That publication, which concerns the Bahamas, notes that the first 2 species were collected together, at 110 fathoms, and the last was collected separately , all near the American Shoal Light. Given the commonness of the place name, without evidence that the records are not from the Bahamas, we elected not to include those species in our inventory. Aside from those 3, all species inventoried by Hedgpeth (1954) were from near shore. Deepwater actiniarians of the Gulf are just beginning to be explored (e.g., Daly et al. 2004). Thus, our inventory of actiniarians is nearly twice as long as that of Hedgpeth (1954), who included no corallimorpharians or zoanthids. The survey of Carlgren and Hedgpeth (1952) listed 14 species, one identified only to genus, and 4 new; this rate of nearly 25% new species indicates the poverty of knowledge of this fauna. Although species not recorded from elsewhere are identified as endemic in our inventory, too little is known about the anemones of the Gulf of Mexico and nearby seas to be certain they...

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