dcsimg
Image of Sinularia australiensis van Ofwegen, Benayahu & McFadden 2013
Creatures » » Animal » Cnidarians » Anemones And Corals » » Soft Corals » » Alcyoniidae »

Sinularia australiensis van Ofwegen, Benayahu & McFadden 2013

Description

provided by Zookeys
The holotype is 6 cm high and 9.5 cm wide, attached to a piece of rock (Fig. 1A). The middle part of the colony is devoid of lobes, possibly a colony in the process of colony fission. The primary lobes branch off once or twice, lobules knob- to finger-shaped, up to 4 mm wide and 1 cm long. The polyps have a collaret and eight points. Points with poorly developed clubs, up to 0.15 mm long (Fig. 2A). Collaret has bent spindles, up to 0.20 mm long (Fig. 2B). Tentacle sclerites were not present. The surface layer of the lobules has leptoclados-type clubs, the smallest are 0.07 mm long, most are around 0.10 mm, but some even reach a length of 0.15 mm (Fig. 2C); in addition, longer wart clubs are present, up to 0.25 mm long (Fig. 2D). Furthermore, the surface layer of the lobules has spindles, up to 0.40 mm long, with simple tubercles (Fig. 2E). The sclerites of the surface layer of the base of the colony resemble those of the surface layer of the lobules but the clubs have wider handles and the spindles are wider (Fig. 3). The interior of the colony has mostly unbranched spindles; a few have one or two side branches. In the lobules the spindles are up to 2.5 mm long (Fig. 4A), almost all having simple tubercles (Fig. 4B). In the base of the colony they are up to 3 mm long (Fig. 4C), with more complex tubercles (Fig. 4D).
license
cc-by-3.0
copyright
Leen P. van Ofwegen, Yehuda Benayahu, Catherine S. McFadden
bibliographic citation
Ofwegen L, Benayahu Y, McFadden C (2013) Sinularia leptoclados (Ehrenberg, 1834) (Cnidaria, Octocorallia) re-examined ZooKeys 272: 29–59
author
Leen P. van Ofwegen
author
Yehuda Benayahu
author
Catherine S. McFadden
original
visit source
partner site
Zookeys