Gonaxia elegans Vervoort, 1993

Galea, Horia R. & Maggioni, Davide, 2021, An integrative study of some species of Gonaxia Vervoort, 1993 from off New Caledonia, with the establishment of Gonaxiidae as a new family of thecate hydroids (Cnidaria: Hydrozoa), Zootaxa 5004 (3), pp. 401-429 : 410

Gonaxia elegans Vervoort, 1993

Figs 1D , 5C , 15 , 16 ; Table 3

Gonaxia elegans Vervoort, 1993: 19 C, 21B–C, 22.— Galea, 2016: 13 , fig. 4B–D.

Material examined. KANACONO, Stn. CP 4691, MNHN-IK-2015-2669: two colonies, of which one is 10 cm high and bears ♂ gonothecae, while the other is 5 cm high and sterile; GenBank: MZ 099696 (16S), MZ 099684 (18S), MZ 099669 (28S).—KANACONO, Stn. DW 4728, MNHN-IK-2015-2666: two sterile colonies, both 5.5 cm high; GenBank: MZ 099697 (16S).—KANADEEP, Stn. DW 5027, MNHN-IK-2019-2064: a 4 cm high colony bearing ♀ gonothecae .

Remarks. For descriptions of this quite easily-recognizable species, refer to both Vervoort (1993) and Galea (2016).

Bathymetric distribution. Between 150–850 m ( Vervoort 1993; Galea 2016; present study).

Figures

FIGURE 1. Species of Gonaxia dealt with in this study: G. bulbifera Vervoort, 1993 (A), G. crassicaulis Vervoort, 1993 (B), G. crusgalli Vervoort, 1993 (C), G. elegans Vervoort, 1993 (D), G. errans Vervoort, 1993 (E, unbranched form), G. incisa Galea, sp. nov. (F), G. cf. intermedia Vervoort, 1993 (G), G. perplexa Vervoort, 1993 (H), G. sinuosa Vervoort, 1993 (I), G. solenoscyphoides Galea, sp. nov. (J). Scale bar: 1 cm.

FIGURE 5. Gonothecae of several species of Gonaxia dealt with herein: G. crassicaulis Vervoort, 1993 (A: female, B: male), G. elegans Vervoort, 1993 (C), G. incisa Galea, sp. nov. (D), G. perplexa Vervoort, 1993 (E), G. sinuosa Vervoort, 1993 (F). Scale bar: 5 mm.

FIGURE 15. Phylogenetic hypothesis for Gonaxia species based on a 16S dataset. Numbers at nodes show maximum likelihood bootstrap values, Bayesian posterior probabilities, and maximum parsimony bootstrap values, respectively.

FIGURE 16. Phylogenetic hypothesis for the position of the Gonaxiidae Maggioni, fam. nov. within Macrocolonia, based on a multi-locus dataset. Numbers at nodes show maximum likelihood bootstrap values, Bayesian posterior probabilities, and maximum parsimony bootstrap values, respectively, and are shown only when at least two analyses demonstrated high support (> 0.9 for Bayesian posterior probabilities and> 75 for bootstrap values).