Antipathidae Ehrenberg, 1834

Opresko, Dennis M. & Wagner, Daniel, 2020, New species of black corals (Cnidaria: Anthozoa: Antipatharia) from deep- sea seamounts and ridges in the North Pacific, Zootaxa 4868 (4), pp. 543-559 : 544

Family Antipathidae Ehrenberg, 1834

The family Antipathidae is characterized by polyps with six primary and four secondary mesenteries, and a transverse polyp diameter ranging from 1 mm to as much as 3 mm. The expanded tentacles of the polyps narrow to a fine tip and are as much as three times longer than the polyp diameter, and the sagittal tentacles are usually longer than lateral tentacles. The corallum can be unbranched or sparsely to densely branched (i.e., bramble-like, bushy, broomlike or fan-shaped), but is never truly pinnulated, although flabellate colonies with bilateral branching can appear so. The skeletal spines are triangular or conical in lateral view; smooth or covered to varying degrees with small, roundish to oblong papillae, and the apex of spines can be simple (acute or rounded), bifurcated or multiply lobed.