Chromoplexaura Williams, 2013

Horvath, Elizabeth Anne, 2019, A review of gorgonian coral species (Cnidaria, Octocorallia, Alcyonacea) held in the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History research collection: focus on species from Scleraxonia, Holaxonia, Calcaxonia - Part II: Species of Holaxonia, families Gorgoniidae and Plexauridae, ZooKeys 860, pp. 67-182 : 67

Genus Chromoplexaura Williams, 2013

Chromoplexaura Williams, 2013a (part): 31, 34-35.

Type species.

Euplexaura marki Kükenthal, 1913.

Diagnosis.

Tall, erect, generally planar colonies, bright red; if branched, lateral (not extensively branched, if present, at all), from single, basal stem. Upper branches slender, elongate, most slightly curved, distally less dense; denser proximally and lower in colony. Polyps fully retractile; on all sides of branches and stem, as numerous slightly rounded, low to flat protuberances. Sclerites also red; robust spindles, and radiates, some ellipsoidal to sub-spherical in shape; prominent sclerite a long spindle with prominent, cone-shaped caps at each end and obvious median “waist” (herein referenced with new terminology: the double-dunce cap or double-dunce). Contains a single species from the temperate eastern Pacific (generally, California to Washington; slight possibility of presence in Canadian (even Alaskan) waters).

Etymology.

Derived from the Greek chroma- referring to color, and the gorgonian generic name plexaura- in reference to the bright color of the colonies.

Remarks.

Diagnosis for the genus Euplexaura ( Kükenthal, 1913a) was examined for comparison with that of the recently proposed genus Chromoplexaura Williams, 2013a. The species placed in this new genus is well represented in the SBMNH collection, fitting the description given by Williams (2013a, 32-39). The original placement of the temperate Eastern Pacific species in the genus Euplexaura was adhered to for an entire century, based on the original description of Kükenthal (1913 a). That original description was little referenced, and specimens of the species in this genus collected along the California coast post-1913 were often misidentified. Both the genus (as represented in CA) and the locally collected species received virtually no further attention until my work began on the SBMNH collection in 2002; a subsequent inquiry of Dr Williams (e-mail conversation, March 2011) was made, regarding what his perspective on the species was. Williams’ (2013a) establishment of a new genus for this temperate gorgonian is justified.