Favosipora purpurea, Souto, Javier, Kaufmann, Manfred J. & Canning-Clode, João, 2015

Souto, Javier, Kaufmann, Manfred J. & Canning-Clode, João, 2015, New species and new records of bryozoans from shallow waters of Madeira Island, Zootaxa 3925 (4), pp. 581-593 : 582-584

Favosipora purpurea sp. nov.

( Figs 2–10 , Table 1 )

Material examined. Holotype: MMF 44306, 32º38’03.34’’ N; 16º56’04.05’’ W, 11 m, August 2013, on rock samples. Paratypes: MMF 44302, 44308, data as for holotype.

Etymology. Latin purpureus, purple, alluding to the colour of the specimens.

Description. Colony encrusting, more or less circular, losing this form in the largest colonies, mounded, purple in colour, up to 2 cm diameter. Narrow marginal lamina striated with fine ridges orientated perpendicular to margin, indicating incipient zooids.

Autozooids usually in uniserial series of 3–7 autozooids, radiating from the brood-chambers, losing the radial orientation in large colonies. Autozooids with rounded apertures and tapering peristomes, some bicuspid but most with only one triangular cusp. Polypide with eight tentacles.

Kenozooids polygonal in outline, with variable apertural diameter, normally smaller than autozooids. Numerous pinhead spinules (mural spines) visible on interior walls of kenozooids, the heads very prickly.

Brood-chamber irregularly shaped; roof densely perforated by tiny pseudopores. Up to 11 brood-chambers counted in one colony. Ooeciostome similar in size to adjacent autozooids, circular, situated at margin of brood chamber, just outside pseudoporous roof. An internal horizontal lamina perpendicular to aperture covers almost one-third of ooeciostome diameter.

Ancestrula not observed.

Remarks. Inclusion of these specimens in the genus Favosipora is justified by the following characters: colony adnate, simple and initially radial, formed by interior-walled autoozooids with simple peristomes, separated by numerous kenozooids, brood-chamber expanded, with the roof formed of exterior wall densely covered by pseudopores and with a simple ooeciostome.

Previously, eleven recent species of Favosipora were known from the Indian and Pacific Oceans ( Gordon 2014), most of them from the Southern Hemisphere ( Gordon & Taylor 2001, 2010), the sole exceptions being Favosipora holdsworthii ( Busk, 1875) described from Ceylon ( Sri Lanka) and Favosipora adunca Dick et al., 2006 described from the Hawaiian islands. One fossil species, Favosipora ichnusae Toscano & Taylor, 2008 is also known from the Mediterranean. The present specimens represent the first record of this genus in the Atlantic Ocean.

None of the other described species have precisely the same expression of characters of the specimens studied here. The main distinctions are the tubular ooeciostome having a similar diameter to that of autozooids, partly closed by a horizontal lamina. The bicuspid peristome is not common in the other species, except in F. adunca , which lacks mural spines in the kenozooids. According to Gordon and Taylor (2001), species of Favosipora were occasionally identified in the literature as Discoporella (i.e. Disporella ) or Lichenopora , two genera easily distinguished from Favosipora by their interior-walled brood-chambers.

Few cyclostome species have been reported from Madeira. Johnson (1897) and Norman (1909) recorded three species attributed to Lichenopora —as Lichenopora radiata (currently Patinella radiata (Audouin, 1826)) , Lichenopora hispida (currently Disporella hispida (Fleming, 1828)) and Lichenopora irregularis ( Johnson, 1897) , but none of the descriptions pertaining to these is consistent with the genus Favosipora , and less with our specimens.

One photograph in Wirtz (1995, p. 199) shows a similar specimen, described as an “unidentified encrusting moss animal.”

SD, standard deviation; N, number of measurements

Figures

FIGURES 2 – 10. Favosipora purpurea, holotype: 2, colony showing original color prior to bleaching; 3, autozooids, some in radiating series, and kenozooids surrounding a central brood chamber; 4, colony margin; 5, 6, short series of autozooids surrounded by kenozooids; 7, mural spines in kenozooids; 8, brood chamber; 9, 10, ooeciostome.

Tables

TABLE 1. Measurements (in mm) of Favosipora purpurea sp. nov.

	Mean	SD	Minimum	Maximum	N
Autozooid apertural diameter	0.098	0.0118	0.079	0.126	39
Kenozooid apertural diameter	0.045	0.0080	0.028	0.058	42
Brood-chamber length	0.988	0.1257	0.896	1.209	5
Ooeciostome diameter	0.124	0.0086	0.116	0.136	4