Question

Sea fan (gorgonia) belongs to class
a) Scyphozoa
b) Anthozoa
c) Hydrozoa
d) Parazoa

Answer 1

Hint: Gorgonians are soft corals which do not produce the skeletons composed of calcium carbonate. Sea fans are formally called Alcyonacea.

Complete Answer:
- Taxonomy is a branch of biology that deals with the identification, classification and naming of all the living organisms. Taxonomic category is the position or status of taxon in a hierarchical classification of organisms.
- In classification, the organisms which closely resemble one another are placed together in a group. The groups which have similarities are combined into larger ones and still larger ones.
- There are seven major categories and the hierarchy in descending order is Kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus and species.

Class is a category or groups of several related orders E.g. mammals.

Taxonomy of sea fan:
Kingdom - Animalia
Phylum - Cnidaria
Class - Anthozoa
Order -Alcyonacea
Family - Gorgoniidae
Genus - Gorgonia
Species - Gorgonia ventalina Linnaeus.

Therefore the correct answer is (b) Anthozoa.

Additional information:
- Sea fans are a variety of coral that are fan shaped and are grown in large colonies.
- It is made up of a large number of polyps that has 8 tentacles.
- The central skeleton on coral consists of scleroprotein called gorgonin that is horny and and flexible in nature.

Note: Sea fan forms fan-shaped colonies and the polyps spread its tentacles to form net like structure to increase the ability to trap prey in water currents. These species are carnivorous which feed on zooplankton.