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The diversity of Ceriantharia is known from studies formally describing species from the late 18th Century onwards. However, no nomenclators including a list and discussion of all valid species have been produced since a list discussed by Carlgren in 1912. The present nomenclator presents a complete list of adult species of Ceriantharia of the World, including a discussion on each species. It includes the three families (Arachnactidae, Botrucnidiferidae, Cerianthidae) and the currently accepted 54 species based on their adult form. This study serves as a presentation of the “state-of-the-art” list of species of Ceriantharia, and includes a species identification key to support taxonomic identification. Additional in-depth species-by-species investigations for almost all cerianthid species is still needed, as the information available for most of these species is quite superficial.

Sabah, Malaysia, is well known for its extensive and diverse coral reefs. It is located on the northwestern edge of the Coral Triangle, the region with the highest marine biodiversity. Much of the marine fauna here is still unknown, especially inconspicuous animals, such as small stoloniferous octocorals, which are common on coral reefs. Here, we describe two new monospecific genera of the family Arulidae found off the coast of Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, East Malaysia; Bunga payung gen. nov. et sp. nov. and Laeta waheedae gen. nov. et sp. nov. As well, the stoloniferan genus Phenganax Alderslade & McFadden, 2011 belonging to the family Clavulariidae is expanded with three new species, P. marumi sp. nov., P. subtilis sp. nov., and P. stokvisi sp. nov., which are all sclerite-free. Additionally, we report a possibly undescribed species, closely related to the clavulariid genera Azoriella Lopez-Gonzalez & Gili, 2001 and Cervera Lopez-Gonzalez et al., 1995. As this and other recent studies have shown, discoveries of small stoloniferous octocorals are helping to fill gaps in our knowledge of the overall systematics of Octocorallia.

This is an addendum to the availability of the generic name Hana Lau, Stokvis, Ofwegen & Reimer, 2018 within the octocoral family Arulidae. Here, the replacement name Hanah is proposed, as Hana Lau, Stokvis, Ofwegen & Reimer, 2018 is a junior homonym to senior homonym Hana Kukalova-Peck, 1975, a genus within the family Hanidae of the Palaeozoic insect order Megasecoptera.

A new genus and species of octocoral with a calcium-carbonate skeleton, Nanipora kamurai sp. n., is described from a shallow coral reef in Okinawa, Japan. Contrary to most octocorals, the skeleton is composed of crystalline aragonite as in blue coral Heliopora. The results of molecular phylogenetic analyses of sequences of mtMutS, COI, and ITS1-5.8s-ITS2-28S region suggest Nanipora gen. n. specimens should be included in order Helioporacea. Based on morphological results compared with other Helioporacea including the genus Epiphaxum (family Lithotelestidae), we establish the new genus Nanipora within Lithotelestidae. This is the first time that a close molecular phylogenetic relationship between Heliopora and a related genus within Helioporacea has been revealed.