Cirrholovenia sp.

(Figure 5F, G)

Material examined

1 colony, polyp, without gonophores; Agua de Yepiz, La Paz Bay, Baja California Sur, 24.288°N, 110.630°W; depth 0–1 m; 24 June 2018; on the alga Sargassum sp .; ECO-CH-Z 11788 .

Identification (after Calder et al. 2003; Migotto and Cabral 2005)

Colony stolonal. Hydrothecae tubular, 0.2 mm long, arising directly from hydrorhiza and adnate from proximal part. Hydrothecal margin presented as a continuation of notsegmented operculum, which folds upon itself forming pleats.

Distribution

New record for the MP. The specimen resembles Cirrholovenia tetranema (Calder et al. 2003; Migotto and Cabral 2005) which is the only species between C. polynema, C. reticulata and C. violacea with a morphological description of its benthic phase (Kramp 1959; Xu and Huang 2004; Gershwin et al. 2010; Tosetto et al. 2021). Therefore, this identification remains as Cirrholovenia sp., until more life cycle and morphological data is generated for this genus.

Remarks

The shape of the hydrotheca shows similarities with the genus Lafoeina; however, structures such as nematothecae and gonothecae were not observed, which are important to determine it at a more specific level (Calder 1991; Calder et al. 2003; Moura 2015).