Mopsea is a genus of coral belonging to the Mopseidae family. It comprises two species, Mopsea encrinula and Mopsea triaknema, found around the coasts of Australia at depths ranging from . Colonies are orange-brown and grow up to around in size. They comprise multiple branches from which grow feather-shaped structures. Polyps are covered in sclerites and span across the entire colony. The two species can be distinguished by the shape of their sclerites.
GENUS
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Mopsea is a genus of coral belonging to the Mopseidae family. It comprises two species, Mopsea encrinula and Mopsea triaknema, found around the coasts of Australia at depths ranging from . Colonies are orange-brown and grow up to around in size. They comprise multiple branches from which grow feather-shaped structures. Polyps are covered in sclerites and span across the entire colony. The two species can be distinguished by the shape of their sclerites.
The genus was originally erected by Jean Vincent Félix Lamouroux in 1816 as a part of the family Isididae. It comprised two species previously assigned to Isis, Mopsea encrinula and Mopsea dichotoma, to which other species were later added. Controversy over the identity of M. dichotoma type specimen, possibly belonging to an unrelated melithaeid genus, culminated in a 1993 ruling by the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature designating M. encrinula as the type species. A later reassessment divided most of the described species between other genera, leaving M. encrinula and the newly described M. triaknema as the only accepted species. In 2021, Isididae was shown through molecular phylogenetics to be polyphyletic, and Mopsea was reassigned to the eponymous family Mopsidae.
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