Acanthogorgia Gray, 1857

Horvath, Elizabeth Anne, 2019, A review of gorgonian coral species (Cnidaria, Octocorallia, Alcyonacea) held in the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History research collection: focus on species from Scleraxonia, Holaxonia, and Calcaxonia - Part I: Introduction, species of Scleraxonia and Holaxonia (Family Acanthogorgiidae), ZooKeys 860, pp. 1-66 : 1

Genus Acanthogorgia Gray, 1857

Acanthogorgia Gray, 1857a: 128, pl 3, fig 2 [1851]. (pars) Johnson 1861: 297; 1862a: 195. (nec) Verrill 1866 a: 152. Pourtales 1867: 113. (nec) Studer 1879: 652 (vide Kükenthal 1919: 911). Verrill 1883: 30. Studer (and Wright) 1887: 54. Wright and Studer 1889: 93 + pl. Hedlund 1890: 8. Studer 1901: 43. Thomson and Henderson 1906 a: 50. Kükenthal and Gorzawsky 1908a: 626; 1908b: 52. Kükenthal 1909: 71. Nutting 1910: 12. Kükenthal 1919: 298, 762, 846; 1924: 239. Aurivillius 1931: 53. Stiasny 1943 b: 129; 1947: 31. Bayer 1996a: 1-2. Grasshoff 1999: 20; 2000: 40. Fabricius and Alderslade 2001: 184.

Blepharogorgia (pars) Duchassaing & Michelotti, 1864: 15.

Paracanthogorgia Stiasny, 1943b: 130; 1947: 11, 53. Grasshoff 1973: 1; 1992: 89. (Type species: Paracanthogorgia paratruncata Stiasny, 1943b; species designation by Bayer 1996a: 2).

Type species.

Acanthogorgia hirsuta Gray, by monotypy (? = A. aspera Pourtalès, 1867).

Diagnosis.

Colonies generally flattened (flabellate); commonly reticulate, or developed into dense bushy shrubs. Branches appear thin and delicate. Polyps tall, cylindrical, topped with thorny crown of strongly projecting spinous sclerites, embedded at tentacle bases. They lie, collectively, over infolded tentacles, protruding end of sclerites smooth. Polyps on all sides of branches, or roughly biserial; arise vertically at right angle to branch surface, acalycinous, not retractile. Coenenchyme between branches usually thin, axis visible through it. Sclerites in polyps slender spindles slightly bent, arranged en chevron in eight longitudinal double rows. Back of tentacles with only numerous small, flat, bent sclerites; stem coenenchyme with slender, generally bent or sinuous spindles sculptured by prickles or simple tubercles; in deeper layers of coenenchyme (some species), with radiates (tri-radiates and crosses, often with a projecting central spine). Axis dark, but coenenchyme usually colored; sclerites always colorless.

Remarks.

Only one collected specimen from the genus appeared in the ‘Velero’ material; it does not match any of the described species it has been compared it to, thus far. It was collected in Mexican waters, beyond the geographic range covered in this work; description of this specimen is in progress.