Leptogorgia Milne Edwards & Haime, 1857

Published, First, 2007, A revision of the genus Leptogorgia Milne Edwards & Haime, 1857 (Coelenterata: Octocorallia: Gorgoniidae) in the eastern Pacific, Zootaxa 1419, pp. 1-90 : 6

Genus Leptogorgia Milne Edwards & Haime, 1857

Gorgonia (pars) Pallas, 1766: 160; Milne Edwards & Haime 1857: 157.

Leptogorgia Milne Edwards & Haime, 1857: 163 ; Verrill 1868b: 387; Verrill 1869: 420; Kükenthal 1924: 324; Bielschowsky 1929: 81; Stiasny 1943: 87; Bayer 1961: 214; Grasshoff 1988: 97; Grasshoff 1992: 54; Williams 1992: 231; Williams & Lindo 1997: 500; Breedy & Guzman 2005: 2.

Lophogorgia Milne Edwards & Haime, 1857: 167 ; Kükenthal 1924: 322; Bielschowsky 1929: 73; Bayer 1956: 212; Bayer 1961: 194.

Filigorgia Stiasny, 1937: 309 ; 1939: 301; Bayer 1956: 206.

Type species. Gorgonia viminalis Pallas, 1766 (from the Mediterranean Sea), by subsequent designation, Verrill 1869: 420.

Diagnosis. Gorgoniids with variable branching patterns: pinnate, dichotomous, or filiform. Branch anastomosis absent in all except two species, Leptogorgia gilchristi (Hickson, 1904) and Leptogorgia bayeri Williams & Lindo, 1997 . Axis horny, with a cross-chambered central core with a network of organic filaments frequently mineralized. Colonies may be found with a holdfast attaching them to hard substrates, or just lying on the substrate. Polyps are fully retractile into the coenenchyme, which may be slightly raised, mound-like, around the apertures. Coenenchymal sclerites are capstans and/or spindles. Capstans have two whorls of tubercles and blunt or elongated ends with various arrangements of complex tubercles. Spindles have several whorls of tubercles; some have bent ends, with symmetrically or asymmetrically complex tuberculation. In some species, the warts are fused into incomplete disks. The ends of the spindles can be acute, blunt, or one of each. Anthocodial sclerites usually flat rods and platelets. Colour variable: white, yellow, orange, red, violet, or brownish, and bicoloured (based on Grasshoff 1988; Grasshoff 1992; Williams & Lindo 1997; Breedy & Guzman 2005).

Distribution. Eastern Pacific (from southern California to Chile), Atlantic Ocean, western and southern Africa, Caribbean Sea, Mediterranean Sea, and one record for the subantarctic (Williams & Lindo 1997).

Remarks. Milne Edwards & Haime (1857) in their “Histoire naturelle des coralliaires” described the genus Leptogorgia along with the genus Lophogorgia . The genus Lophogorgia was established for just one species: Lophogorgia palma (from Cape of Good Hope). Milne Edwards & Haime made very short descriptions based only on the external morphology of the colonies. Verrill (1868b) examined the sclerites of several species of Leptogorgia and designated Leptogorgia viminalis (from Islas Canarias) as the type of Leptogorgia and included the monotypic Lophogorgia in Leptogorgia thus synonymizing the two genera (see Grasshoff 1988). Later the two genera were separated again with uncertainty until Bayer in 1956 and 1961 gave a clear delineation: Lophogorgia with symmetrical sclerites and Leptogorgia with symmetrical and asymmetrical sclerites, the latter kind with flat tubercles fused into disks. This definition worked well for the West Indies fauna but not for the American Pacific; although the distinction in some species was not clear, suggesting a “continuum” (according to Grasshoff 1988). Grasshoff (1988) in his revision of West African gorgoniid fauna found transitional forms between the two genera, which made the “continuum” more obvious. Consequently, Grasshoff (1988) once more decided to synonymize both genera.