Eirene viridula ( Péron & Lesueur, 1810 )

Buecher, Emmanuelle, Goy, Jacqueline, J, Mark & Gibbons, 2005, Hydromedusae of the Agulhas Current, African Invertebrates 46, pp. 27-69 : 55

Eirene viridula ( Péron & Lesueur, 1810)

Oceania viridula: Péron & Lesueur 1810: 346 . Eirene viridula: Kramp 1961: 191 ; 1968: 90, fig. 243.

Description:Ten specimens from four stations. Hemispherical umbrella, slightly taller than broad, without apical projection; up to 12.5 mm in diameter. Exumbrella surface smooth. Mesoglea thick, thinning to margin. Velum narrow. Peripheral canal and four radial canals present, radial canals narrow, with smooth margin, unbranched, extending from umbrella margin across underside of bell and along gastric peduncle to manubrium; without centripetal canals. With up to 40 tentacles connected to peripheral canal, arising from small conical bulbs on umbrella margin. Tentacles of variable size, generally small, hollow, unbranched, filiform. With no atentaculate marginal bulbs.All marginal bulbs without keel, but with excretory papillae. Lateral and marginal cirri absent. Manubrium short, not connected to radial canals by mesenteries. Mouth simple, quadrate, with four slightly recurved, crenulated lips; gastric peduncle pronounced, slender, with pyramidal base. Statocysts closed, numerous. Without ocelli. Gonads linear, may be sinuous, extending along much of length of subumbrella surface of radial canals, not reaching to gastric peduncle.

Material examined: H5054, H5055.

Comments: see E. menoni . Distribution: Widespread in tropical and warm temperate waters of the Atlantic and Indian oceans; Mediterranean Sea. This is the first record from the south-west Indian Ocean, though previously reported from Djibouti ( Ranson 1933). Neritic.