Antipathidae

There are currently nine genera within the Antipathidae: Antipathes, Arachnopathes, Hillopathes, Pteropathes, Stichopathes, Cirrhipathes, Pseudocirrhipathes, Allopathes and Blastopathes. Members of this family typically occur at depths less than 200 m, but some species may occur deeper (Opresko 2019). Revisions have been published to clarify the taxonomic position of many antipatharian families (Opresko 2001, 2002, 2003 b, 2004, 2005 a, 2006), but the family Antipathidae still needs a major revision since colony and skeleton morphologies are very heterogeneous, and genomic studies have identified a number of polyphyletic groups (Bo et al. 2012 a; Brugler et al. 2013). For example, the type species of the genus Antipathes, Antipathes dichotoma Pallas, 1766, is more closely related to members of the family Aphanipathidae than to many members of Antipathidae. Future studies gathering molecular and morphological data from large sets of widely distributed specimens will be needed to reassess the current classification of both families (Brugler et al. 2013).