Zoantharia

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. An order of marine animals within the class Anthozoa that includes corals, sea anemones, and related organisms characterized by tentacles arranged in multiples of six
2. A taxonomic group comprising colonial and solitary cnidarians such as stony corals and sea anemones, distinguished by their hexamerous tentacle arrangement
3. The order containing hard corals, soft corals, sea anemones, and zoanthids, all of which are sedentary marine polyps with radial symmetry

Etymology: Zoantharia is a scientific coinage built from two Greek words: "zōion," meaning "animal," and "anthos," meaning "flower." Anthozoan animals, such as sea anemones and corals, were once thought to be plant-like, and the "flower" half of the name reflects that. Taxonomists use the "-ia" ending for group names, so the term names a whole order of animals, not a single creature. The name is a modern technical label, not a term from ancient Greek. Its members are colonial marine animals, many of them zoanthids, which form colonies of small polyps. "Zoantharian" is the singular form for one member of the group, and it appears in scientific writing as a noun and an adjective.