Aequorea conica Browne, 1905

Buecher, Emmanuelle, Goy, Jacqueline, J, Mark & Gibbons, 2005, Hydromedusae of the Agulhas Current, African Invertebrates 46, pp. 27-69 : 52

Aequorea conica Browne, 1905

Aequorea conica: Browne 1905: 145 , pl. 1, fig. 2; Kramp 1961: 206; 1968: 100, fig. 272.

Description: Ten specimens from four stations. Conical, domed umbrella, slightly taller than broad, without apical projection; up to 3 mm in diameter. Exumbrella surface smooth, without rows of gelatinous papillae. Mesoglea very thick, thinning slightly to margin.Velum narrow. Peripheral canal and up to 16 radial canals present, latter narrow, with smooth margin and unbranched; without centripetal canals. With 25–30 tentacles connected to peripheral canal, arising from small, conical bulbs on umbrella margin. Tentacles of similar size, long, hollow, unbranched, filiform. As many small rudimentary bulbs as marginal tentacles. All marginal bulbs without keel and with neither excretory papillae nor excretory pores. Lateral and marginal cirri absent. Manubrium up to 1/2 umbrella width, broad and flat, not extending to velum, not connected to radial canals by mesenteries. Mouth simple, circular, with 16 credulated lips; gastric peduncle absent. Statocysts closed, twice as numerous as tentacles. Without ocelli. Gonads rarely extending to half length of radial canals; sac-like, pendant, closer to stomach than margin.

Material examined: H5049.

Comments: see A. forskalea .

Distribution: Widespread in tropical and temperate waters of Indo-West Pacific. Previously collected in the Mozambique Channel (Kramp 1965), off the Seychelles archipelagos (Bouillon 1978 b) and from along the east coast of South Africa ( Millard 1975). Neritic.