Notoplites evocatus ( Jullien, 1882 )

Souto, Javier, Berning, Björn & Ostrovsky, Andrew N., 2016, Systematics and diversity of deep-water Cheilostomata (Bryozoa) from Galicia Bank (NE Atlantic), Zootaxa 4067 (4), pp. 401-459 : 416

Notoplites evocatus ( Jullien, 1882)

(Fig. 29–32)

Bicellaria evocata Jullien, 1882: 12 , pl. 14, figs 21, 22.

Notoplites evocata: Hayward & Ryland 1978: 149 , fig. 4; 1998: 260, fig. 85. Notoplites evocatus: Souto et al. 2011: 34 , figs 7–11.

Material examined. MNCN 25.03/3934, 3935, 3936, locality DR04; OLL 2015/897, locality DR04.

Remarks. Notoplites evocatus has recently been redescribed by Souto et al. (2011). Here we present images of the ancestrula (Fig. 31, 32) for the first time. Several ancestrulae were observed in our material. They are elongated and sac-shaped, c. 0.5 mm long and 0.15 mm wide, and have ten thin, very long (c. 1 mm), curved oral spines, surrounding the terminally placed suborbicular aperture and pointing in different directions. The ancestrula is fixed to the substratum by a single rhizoid that is budded distally on the abfrontal side of the ancestrula near the aperture (Fig. 32). The narrow, tubular proximal part of the first (daughter) autozooid is formed above the rhizoid base, near the distal margin of the ancestrular aperture.

The pedunculate avicularium (Fig. 29) of the autozooid is positioned centrally on the gymnocyst just proximal to the opesia. The avicularian cystid is long (c. 0.23 mm), slightly expanding terminally toward its frontal area where it is c. 0.06 mm long and c. 0.03 mm wide. The rostrum is elongate-triangular and proximally directed and the postmandibular area semielliptical.

The species is regarded as having a very wide geographic distribution, ranging from the central Atlantic to the Arctic ( Hayward & Ryland 1998). However, whether all of these populations, which were mainly recorded and determined using light microscopy during the early 20th century, actually belong to N. evocatus needs yet to be demonstrated using SEM imaging and genetic analyses.

Again, although Souto et al. (2011) reported N. evocatus to occur on the Galicia Bank, the present specimens actually represent the first record of the species from this seamount, as the longitudinal position of the type locality given in Jullien (1882) was not corrected to the Greenwich meridian.

Sixteen colonies were recorded from a single locality at 1288 m, all attached to rocks.