The phylum Cnidaria or Coelenterates includes sea anemones, jellyfish, hydras, sea fans, and, of course, the corals. With few exceptions they are all marine organisms and most are inhabitants of shallow water. In spite of the great variation in shape, size, and mode of life, they all possess the same basic metazoan structural features: an internal space for digestion (gastrovascular cavity or coelenteran), a mouth, and a circle of tentacles, which are really just an extension of the body wall. The body wall in turn is composed of three layers: an outer layer of epidermis, an inner layer of cells lining the gastrovascular cavity, and, sandwiched between them, a so-called mesoglea (Barnes 1980). All these features are present in both of the basic structural types: the sessile polyp and the free-swiming medusa. During their life cycle, some cnidarians exhibit one or the other structural type whereas others pass through both. Most Cnidaria have no mineralized deposits. The ones that, to date, are known to have mineralized deposits are listed in Table 5.1. They are found in both the free-swimming medusae and the sessile polyps. Not surprisingly, these have very different types of mineralized deposits. In the medusae they are located exclusively within the statocyst where they constitute an important part of the organism’s gravity perception apparatus. Interestingly the statoconia of the Hydrozoa, examined to date for their major elemental compositions only, are all composed of amorphous Mg-Ca-phosphate, whereas those of the Scyphozoa and Cubozoa are composed of calcium sulfate. Calcium sulfate minerals (presumably gypsum) are not commonly formed by organisms and the only other known occurrence is in the Gamophyta among the Protoctista. Spangenberg (1976) and her colleagues have expertly documented this phenomenon in the Cnidaria. (For a more detailed discussion of mineralization and gravity perception see Chapter 11.) The predominant mineralized hard part associated with the sessile polyps is skeletal. These can take the form of skeletons composed of individual spicules, spicule aggregates, or massive skeletons. They are composed of aragonite, calcite, or both.
A perforated gastrovascular cavity in the symbiotic deep-water coralLeptoseris fragilis: A new strategy to optimize heterotrophic nutrition