Publications by authors named "D M Opresko"

Black corals are key species of marine ecosystems. They can be found in dense aggregations worldwide, but some parts of the world remain totally unexplored. This is the case of the Mesophotic Coral Ecosystem of Mo'orea where the Under the Pole scientific expedition explored mesophotic ecosystems between 60 and 120 m depth and focused on whip black corals.

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A new family of antipatharian corals, Ameripathidae (Cnidaria: Anthozoa: Antipatharia), is established for Opresko & Horowitz, The new family resembles Myriopathidae and Stylopathidae in terms of the morphology of the polyps and tentacles and the pinnulate branching of the corallum. Phylogenetic analysis using a genomic data set of 741 conserved element loci indicates that the new family is sister to a clade containing the Myriopathidae, Stylopathidae, Antipathidae, and Aphanipathidae.

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A neotype is designated for the antipatharian coral Antipathes flabellum Pallas, 1766. The neotype was collected off Madagascar (the original type locality is given as the Oceanus Indicus). Morphologically, the neotype corresponds closely in corallum shape and skeletal spination to specimens that have traditionally been identified as Antipathes flabellum.

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Black corals (Anthozoa: Antipatharia) are an anthozoan lineage in the class Hexacorallia that occur across a wide range of habitats from the tropics to the poles and from surface waters to depths deeper than 8000 m. A new species of black coral, , collected with a remotely operated vehicle 357 m deep off Puerto Rico is recognized in the family Aphanipathidae. The new species is characterized by very long and loosely coiled primary branches and up to 0.

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We describe five new species of black corals from the Great Barrier Reef and Coral Sea, collected at depths ranging from 14 to 789 m: two in the family Antipathidae (Antipathes falkorae sp. nov. and Antipathes morrisi sp.

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