Stolonica sabulosa Monniot, 1972

Monniot, Françoise, 2018, Ascidians collected during the Madibenthos expedition in Martinique: 2. Stolidobranchia, Styelidae, Zootaxa 4410 (2), pp. 291-318 : 294-295

Stolonica sabulosa Monniot, 1972

Fig. 4

Station: AD, 241 (MNHN STO 31)

A colony of 12 zooids was settled on Halimeda algae. The individuals are distant from each other and only linked by stolons ( Fig.4A ). The bodies are upright and the siphons apical. The tunic is incrusted with sand. The body wall is light brown in formalin. Eighty tentacles were counted in one of the zooids. The dorsal tubercle is button like. The brown branchial sac ( Fig.4B ) has 3 folds on the right side and only 2 on the left side. All zooids are immature. The gut forms a single open loop loosely attached to the body wall. Seven folds can be seen on the visible side of the stomach which has a comma-like caecum. The anus has 2 lobes. There are 4 to 6 endocarps on the right side of the body wall and 3 on the left side.

Without gonads the species identification remains doubtful; it is based on a comparison with specimens collected in Bermuda ( Monniot C. 1972) and in Guadeloupe ( Monniot C. & F. 1984). They have the same colony shape, gut, branchial sac and endocarps in the zooids. Other specimens of S. sabulosa are present in the MNHN collection recorded from Florida in 1999 and from Brazil during the “Calypso” campaign in 1961.

Figures

FIGURE 4. Stolonica sabulosa.A, colony scale bar = 1cm; B, branchial sac stained, scale bar = 1mm.