Abditoporella Sosa-Yañez, Vieira & Solís-Marín

Sosa-Yañez, Armando, Vieira, Leandro M. & Solís-Marín, Francisco A., 2015, A new cheilostome bryozoan genus, Abditoporella (Hippoporidridae), from the eastern Pacific, Zootaxa 3994 (2), pp. 275-282 : 276

Genus Abditoporella Sosa-Yañez, Vieira & Solís-Marín n. gen.

Type species. Abditoporella dimorpha n. sp.

Diagnosis. Colony encrusting, uni- to multilaminar. Zooids polygonal; frontal shield with scattered frontal pseudopores. Orifice cleithridiate (keyhole-shaped) with lateral condyles. Oral spines absent. Avicularia adventitious or interzooidal. Embryos brooded endozooidally in female zooids. Interzooidal communications via septular pores.

Etymology. From Latin abditus, hidden, and - porella, a common suffix for Bryozoa, alluding to the inconspicuous ooecium.

Remarks. This new genus is distinguished from other Hippoporidridae in having both a pseudoporous frontal shield and endozooidal ovicells. These morphological characteristics lead us to include another species previously assigned to Hippopodinella , as Abditoporella turrita ( Osburn, 1952) n. comb. Female zooids are dimorphic in A. dimorpha n. sp., but skeletal dimorphism is not evident in A. turrita ( Osburn 1952) .

Abditoporella n. gen. shares some of the morphological features of both Odontoporella and Hagiosynodos . Odontoporella has a similar orifice, avicularia and internally buttressed recesses for communication pores (see Gordon 1989), but is distinguished from Abditoporella n. gen. in having a non-pseudoporous frontal shield with radial ridges and associated areolar pores, and no externally distinguishable zooidal sexual dimorphism ( Carter & Gordon 2007). The campanulate orifice and the pseudoporous frontal shield of Abditoporella resemble that in the cheiloporinid genus Hagiosynodos ( Bishop & Hayward 1989; Hayward & McKinney 2002), but this genus has conspicuous ooecia closed by the zooidal operculum. Although avicularia were not noted in Hagiosynodos by Hayward & McKinney (2002), they are present in the genus ( Bishop & Hayward 1989). The combined morphological similarities among Abditoporella n. gen., Hagiosynodos and Odontoporella lead us to accommodate these genera in the same family, Hippoporidridae .