Solmundella bitentaculata (Quoy & Gaimard, 1833)

Verhaegen, Gerlien, Cimoli, Emiliano & Lindsay, Dhugal, 2021, Life beneath the ice: jellyfish and ctenophores from the Ross Sea, Antarctica, with an image-based training set for machine learning, Biodiversity Data Journal 9, pp. 69374-69374 : 69374

Solmundella bitentaculata (Quoy & Gaimard, 1833)

Materials

Type status: Other material. Occurrence : individualID: MCMEC2018_ Solmundella _bitentaculata_a; lifeStage: adult; associatedMedia: http://morphobank.org/permalink/?P3993; Taxon : scientificName: Solmundella bitentaculata; kingdom: Animalia ; phylum: Cnidaria ; class: Hydrozoa ; order: Narcomedusae ; family: Solmundaeginidae ; genus: Solmundella ; Location: continent: Antarctica; waterBody: McMurdo Sound; maximumElevationInMeters: 1; decimalLatitude: -77.637; decimalLongitude: 166.401; Identification: identifiedBy: Dhugal Lindsay; Event: samplingProtocol: NIKON D500 camera equipped with a TAMRON SP 90mm F2.8 Di Macro VC USD F017N lens; eventDate: 2018-11-27; Record Level: type: StillImage; language: en; rightsHolder: Emiliano Cimoli

Distribution

Cosmopolitan ( OBIS 2020). In the Southern Ocean: in the McMurdo Sound ( Foster 1989, Larson and Harbison 1990), in the Bellingshausen Sea ( Kramp 1957a), Croker Passage ( Panasiuk-Chodnicka and Żmijewska 2010), in the Weddell Sea ( Pagès and Schnack-Schiel 1996, Grossmann 2010), in Prydz Bay ( Hosie 2012, Hosie 1999c, Hosie 1999a), off Adélie Land ( Toda et al. 2014) and eastern Southern Ocean (south of 35°S, between 15°W and 160°E) ( Navas-Pereira and Vannucci 1990).

Notes

Original description after Quoy and Gaimard (1833) (basionym Carybdea bitentaculata Quoy & Gaimard, 1833) (Fig. 4 A): umbrella consisting of two parts, with a heart-like, marquee-shaped upper part and a more flared, undulated (i.e. “limbe” in the original French version), lower part; two thin, long, rigid tentacles, with inside looking hollow, bending like horns and leaving from the junction between the two umbrella parts, penetrating deep inside the umbrella; large stomach, located deep in the umbrella, harbouring eight manubrial pouches; colour of the bottom of the medusa white or a red-gold yellow; colour of the tentacles reddish at the tip, greenish in the middle. Type locality: Ambon Bay, Indonesia.

Additional information from specimens from the Southern Ocean: There is currently only one species of Solmundella , though historically they were long dissociated into the species S. bitentaculata (Quoy & Gaimard, 1833) and S. mediterranea ( Müller, 1851), which were subsequently synonymised ( Kramp 1955, Thiel 1936, Kramp 1961). From McMurdo Sound ( Browne 1910), reported as " S. mediterranea ", umbrella (up to seven mm wide) little broader than high, with a rather flat top, about on the level of the exit of the tentacles. Many small clusters of ectodermal cells scattered over the ex-umbrella, especially noticeable near the margin of the umbrella, containing many well-defined granules and generally harboured amongst those cells are a number of nematocysts. Four peronial grooves in the wall of the umbrella, cutting deep into the jelly at the margin of the umbrella, but of variable length and depth, with very conspicuous rudimentary grooves in each of the perradii without tentacles. The peronial band in each of the perradii without tentacles, runs alongside the sub-umbrella and turns off at the level of the stomach to the ex-umbrella, where there is a small funnel-shaped pit, showing a fair amount of variation. Gonads confined to the pouches of the stomach, but can extend over the lower part of to the stomach, nearly up to the mouth. Mouth circular. Tentacles 4-7 times as long as the umbrella diameter, of max. 40 mm in length. Margin of the umbrella invariably curled up. Up to eight sensory organs. Four minute interradial bulbs on the margin; from Gauss Station as S. bitentaculata , up to nine mm in diameter, one sensory organ (i.e. “Sinneshöcker” in the German original version) per quadrant, flanked by two or three rhopali [sic] ( Vanhöffen 1912) (DL comment: probably a mis-interpretation and there was actually one tentacle bulb per quadrant, flanked by two or three statocysts).

Additional information from specimens from outside the Southern Ocean: Solmundella bitentaculata is a cosmopolitan species, which may actually be composed of multiple cryptic species ( Lindsay et al. 2017). We, therefore, only give here a non-exhaustive list of descriptions of specimens from localities outside the Southern Ocean: in the Mediterranean Sea as Aeginopsis mediterranea ( Müller 1851) (Fig. 4 E) and S. mediterranea ( Metchnikoff 1886, Haeckel 1879) and in the Adriatic Sea ( Neppi and Stiasny 1913); Atlantic Ocean: Canary Islands as Aeginella bitentaculata ( Haeckel 1879), West Africa (only size of specimens given) ( Kramp 1959), Florida current as Solmundella henseni ( Maas 1893) (Fig. 4 G), Tortugas, Florida ( Mayer 1910) (Fig. 4 D), in Straits of Florida ( Bigelow 1918) and middle and Southern Atlantic (between the latitudes 12°N - 63°S and longitudes 68°W - 21°E) ( Thiel 1936); Pacific Ocean: Indonesia ( Maas 1905) (Fig. 4 B), Sea of Okhotsk and East China Sea (size only) ( Bigelow 1913), Yellow Sea ( Ling 1937), Japan ( Uchida 1928) (Fig. 4 F), north-east Australia (size only) ( Blackburn 1955, Kramp 1953), Chile (size only) ( Kramp 1952) and Eastern Pacific ( Bigelow 1909) (Fig. 4 C); Indian Ocean: Chagos Archipelago and Seychelles as S. mediterranea ( Browne 1916) and off Madras, India ( Menon 1932).

Characteristics of the observed material differing with previous descriptions (Fig. 4 G-I): N = 1 in 2018. The shape of the bell (height 2/3 of width) was similar to the original description (i.e. upper marquee-shaped part and lower flatter part) (Fig. 4 A) and, therefore, also similar to the drawings of Maas (1905) (Fig. 4 B, from Indonesia) and Mayer (1910) (Fig. 4 D, Florida), but differed from the rounder bell shape drawn by Müller (1851) (Fig. 4 E, Mediterranean Sea), by Uchida (1928) (Fig. 4 F, Japan) and the photograph in Bigelow (1909) (Fig. 4 C, Eastern Pacific). Length of tentacles ca. four times bell height. Our specimen had stomach pouches showing jagged edges, whereas the shape of the stomach pouches of all previously described S. bitentaculata and synonyms was either omitted (e.g. Menon 1932, Browne 1910, Quoy and Gaimard 1833) or represented with smooth edges (e.g. Uchida 1928, Mayer 1910). Although hard to discern, it seems there are four tentacle buds with two statocysts between each one, matching the description by Browne (1910). The ex-umbrella was comprised of a pointed apical portion and a flared bell rim. No yellow or red colouration was observable.

Figures

Figure 4. Solmundella bitentaculata. A. Drawing from the original description as Carybdea bitentaculata from Indonesia (Quoy and Gaimard 1833); B. Drawing of another specimen from Indonesia (Maas 1905); C. Photographed specimen from Eastern Pacific (bell diameter 3.5 mm) (Bigelow 1909); D. Drawing of a female specimen as Solmundella mediterranea from Florida (Mayer 1910); E. Drawing of a specimen as Aeginopsis mediterranea from the Mediterranean Sea (Mueller 1851); F. Drawing of a specimen from Japan (height 8.5 mm) (Uchida 1928); G. Drawing of a specimen as Solmundella henseni from Florida (Maas 1893); H-I. Specimen MCMEC 2018 _ Solmundella _ bitentaculata _ a observed on 27 / 11 / 2018: lateral view (H) and oral-lateral view (I). I-J photos courtesy: E. Cimoli.