Antipathozoanthus Sinniger, Reimer & Pawlowski, 2010

Type species.

Antipathozoanthus macaronesicus ( Ocaña & Brito, 2003)

Diagnosis.

Macrocinemic zoantharians with cteniform endodermal muscle or endo-meso transitional sphincter muscle (Swain et al. 2015). Substrate consists of either antipatharians or coral carbonate (reef). Genetic distance of mitochondrial COI sequences and insertion/deletion patterns in 16S-rDNA sequences are significantly different from those in other parazoanthid genera (Sinniger et al. 2005, 2010).

Remarks.

Four of five formally described species grow mainly on antipatharians, but this character is not exclusive to all species in the genus as A. obscurus sp. n. is not associated with any host organism. Results of the current study showed that A. obscurus sp. n. is clearly placed within this genus according to COI and 16S-rDNA sequence analyses. Thus, these non-associated species/specimens are within the genus based on their phylogenetic position but do not fit the original definition of the genus by Sinniger et al. (2010).