Lovenella grandis Nutting, 1901

Calder, Dale R., 2013, Some shallow-water hydroids (Cnidaria: Hydrozoa) from the central east coast of Florida, USA, Zootaxa 3648 (1), pp. 1-72 : 14

Lovenella grandis Nutting, 1901

Fig. 2a, b

Lovenella grandis Nutting, 1901: 353 , fig. 45.

Type locality. USA: Rhode Island, Newport Harbor, off Castle Hill ( Nutting 1901) .

Voucher material. Off St. Lucie Inlet, 27°08.5’N, 80°01.6’W, 32 m, 26.ii.1974, Smith-McIntyre grab, R/ V Gosnold Station 222/266E, four colony fragments, one on small shell fragment, up to 4.3 cm high, with gonophores, ROMIZ B1076 .

Remarks. Material examined here could not be distinguished in any significant way from accounts of Lovenella grandis Nutting, 1901 , a species first described from New England. Gonothecae in specimens from Florida had a distinct collar terminally instead of being truncate, but this is taken to be merely a developmental difference in a poorly-known species.

Primary records of Lovenella grandis are few in number (e.g., Nutting 1901; Hargitt 1908; Sumner et al. 1913; Fraser 1941; Defenbaugh 1972; Defenbaugh & Hopkins 1973) and are limited to the east and gulf coasts of the United States. Of the hydroids examined in this collection, L. grandis is unusual in apparently being a temperate species at the southern limits of its range rather than a tropical-subtropical species extending northwards into the southeastern United States. Other lots of this species in collections at the ROM are from South Carolina (Murrells Inlet, Main Creek, 33°32’51”N, 79°01’27”W, 22.v.1975, coll. D. Calder, ROMIZ B1549; Murrells Inlet, Main Creek, 33°33’14”N, 79°01’20”W, 22.v.1975, coll. D. Calder, ROMIZ B1553) and Massachusetts (Nantucket Sound off Martha’s Vineyard, east of East Chop Lighthouse, 41°27.425’N, 70°31.591’W, 12 m, 15.x.2001, on shell, coll. D. Calder, ROMIZ B3500).

Little is yet known about the life cycle of Lovenella grandis , although gonothecae observed here, first described by Fraser (1941), contained medusa buds rather than fixed sporosacs. In his original description of the species, Nutting (1901) reported that gonophores produced “free, bell-shaped medusae with 8 tentacles in two sets, and 4 lithocysts.”

Reported distribution. Atlantic coast of Florida. First record.

Western Atlantic. Massachusetts ( Hargitt 1908, Sumner et al. 1913) to Florida (this study); northern Gulf of Mexico ( Defenbaugh & Hopkins 1973).

Figures

FIGURE 2. a, Lovenella grandis: hydrocaulus with two hydrothecae and a gonotheca, ROMIZ B1076, scale equals 0.5 mm. b, Lovenella grandis: hydrocaulus with pedicel and hydrotheca, ROMIZ B1076, scale equals 0.25 mm. c, Plicatotheca anitae: part of hydrocaulus with two hydrothecae, ROMIZ B1072, scale equals 0.25 mm. d, Plicatotheca anitae: gonotheca, ROMIZ B1072, scale equals 0.25 mm. e, Lafoea intorta, sp. nov.: part of hydrocaulus with five hydrothecae, ROMIZ B1098, scale equals 0.25 mm. f, Lafoea intorta, sp. nov.: part of hydrocaulus with a hydrotheca, ROMIZ B1098, scale equals 0.10 mm.