Staurotheca australis Peña Cantero, Svoboda and Vervoort, 1997

Cantero, A. L. Peña & Vervoort, W., 2003, Species of Staurotheca Allman, 1888 (Cnidaria: Hydrozoa: Sertulariidae) from US Antarctic expeditions, with the description of three new species, Journal of Natural History 37 (22), pp. 2653-2722 : 2673

Staurotheca australis Peña Cantero, Svoboda and Vervoort, 1997

Staurotheca australis Peña Cantero et al., 1997: 345–347 , figures 2, 13a; 1999: 160.

Remarks. Staurotheca australis is a well-characterized species, distinguished mainly by the shape of the hydrotheca and the arrangement of the hydrothecae in two longitudinal series, but also by the erect and polysiphonic stems, frequently branched in one plane, and by the absence of both anastomoses and mushroomshaped diaphragm (cf. table 6).

Ecology and distribution. Staurotheca australis is known only from off the eastern coast of the Weddell Sea, where it was collected from 432 to 813 m depth (Peña Cantero et al., 1997).