Check List of Iran marine Cnidarians (Animalia, Cnidaria)

Abstract

There is an urgent need for quality control of marine species data published in domestic journals and open access databases. We extracted 149 accepted Cnidarian species after the quality control process on available published records on the OBIS data scheme. In total, 75 species belong to the hard corals (Scleractinia); 16 species belong to soft corals (Alcyonacea); 4 species of sea anemones (Actiniaria); 7 species of colonial anemones (Zoantharia); 24 species of thecate hydroids (Leptothecata); 2 species of athecate hydroids (Anthoathecata); 4 species of sea pens (Pennatulacea); 14 species of Siphonophora hydra, 2 species for Trachymedusae hydra and only one species for Narcomedusae. Our checklist can be considered as a reliable Cnidarian species list in future research and making a decision for biodiversity and conservation of corals in the country. We also updated species richness data on Iran hard corals to 75 species (Scleractinia).