Perophora annectens Ritter, 1893

Lambert, Gretchen, 2019, The Ascidiacea collected during the 2017 British Columbia Hakai MarineGEO BioBlitz, Zootaxa 4657 (3), pp. 401-436 : 421

Perophora annectens Ritter, 1893

Figure 10H

IHAK 37 BHAK 1705 UF 2522. Crazy Town surge channel, Scuba, 5 m. Large colony on kelp holdfast with Styela truncata Ritter, 1901 .

IHAK 44 BHAK 1719 UF 2531. Rattenbury Pinnacle, Scuba, 21 m. On filamentous red alga .

MHAK 14 BHAK 0622. Tippy Rock Bay low intertidal with Boltenia villosa ( Stimpson, 1864) and Metandrocarpa taylori .

This species is usually found as an epibiont growing over solitary ascidians or various algal species. The small zooids up to 3 mm in height are connected by stolons; colonies may be quite large and composed of hundreds of zooids. Rarely some of the zooids in a colony may be completely embedded in a common transparent tunic, though in each zooid the siphons open independently at the tunic surface. Zooids are yellowish-green with four rows of stigmata. Reproduction is both sexual with the embryos incubated in a special pouch in the atrial area, or asexual by stolonic budding. A detailed morphological description is given by Ritter (1893), Huntsman (1912b), and Van Name (1945). This is a common native species from southern Alaska to southern California on both natural and artificial surfaces ( Huntsman 1912b; Van Name 1945; Abbott & Newberry 1980; O’Clair & O’Clair 1998; Lamb & Hanby 2005).

Figures

FIGURE 10. Figure 10. Phlebobranchia. A, B: Ascidia columbiana. A: whole animal right side, anterior on the right. Arrows indicate oral siphon opening (on right) and atrial opening above. B: anterior end around oral opening showing tunic papillations. C: Ascidia paratropa 9 cm in length; D: Ciona savignyi 6.2 cm in length; E: Chelyosoma productum 1.5 cm in diameter; F: Corella inflata about 3 cm in length; G: Corella willmeriana about 3 cm in length; H: Perophora annectens. Scale bars: A, 1.5 cm; B, 2 mm; H, 4 mm. C, D, F, G photos by G. Paulay.