Muricea Lamouroux, 1821

Breedy, Odalisca & Guzman, Hector M., 2016, A new Muricea species (Cnidaria, Anthozoa, Octocorallia) from the eastern tropical Pacific, ZooKeys 629, pp. 1-10 : 2

Taxon classification Animalia Alcyonacea Plexauridae

Genus Muricea Lamouroux, 1821

Muricea Lamouroux, (pars.) 1821: 36; Blainville (pars) 1834: 509; Ehrenberg (pars.) 1834: 134; Dana 1846: 673; Milne Edwards and Haime 1857: 142; Kölliker 1865: 135; Verrill 1868: 411; Verrill 1869: 418-419, 450; Studer 1887: 58; Wright and Studer 1889: 93; Gorzawsky 1908: 8; Nutting 1910: 9; Kükenthal 1919: 835; 1924: 141; Riess 1929: 383-384; Aurivillius 1931: 102-104; Deichmann 1936: 99; Bayer 1956: F210; 1959: 12; 1961: 179-180; 1981: 930 (in key); 1994: 23-24; Tixier-Durivault 1970: 154; Harden 1979: 140; Hardee and Wicksten 1996: 127-128; Marques and Castro 1995: 162; Castro et al. 2010: 779; Breedy and Guzman 2015: 6-7; 2016: 7-9.

Eumuricea (pars.) Verrill, 1869: 449; Riess 1929: 397; Breedy and Guzman 2015: 6-7.

Type species.

Muricea spicifera Lamouroux, 1821, by subsequent designation ( Milne Edwards and Haime 1857.)

Genus diagnosis

(based on Breedy and Guzman 2016). Colonies planar or multiplanar, bushy, arborescent, laterally branched, pinnately branched, dichotomous or with long flexible branches, with some occasional branch anastomosis. Branches and branchlets upward bending almost parallel, and with about the same thickness all along, frequently with slightly enlarged tips. Coenenchyme moderately to very thick (compared to other plexaurids) with a circle of longitudinal canals surrounding the axis and dividing the coenenchyme into a thin inner layer or axial sheath, and a thicker outer layer. The outer and inner layer of coenenchyme indiscriminate, almost blended in species with thinner branches. In some species with a thin coenenchyme polyps fully retractile within prominent calyces longitudinally and closely placed all around branches and branchlets, or spaced in loose spirals around branches and branchlets. Calyces prominent, shelf-like or tubular, with prickly projecting spindles, longitudinally arranged. Base of anthocodia without sclerites or with flat rods arranged in weakly differentiated collaret and points below tentacles, or just transversely set along the neck zone of polyp. Sclerites of outer coenenchyme and of calyx mostly long, unilateral spinous spindles, often massive, sculptured on inner surface by crowded complex tubercles and on outer surface by simple spines or prickles, and in some species with a few more or less prominent coarse, prickly projections. Spindles with laterally placed spinous or leaf-like processes are the dominant type in some species. Axial sheath composed of capstans, spindles, or oval forms, and undeveloped sclerites. Sclerite colours are white, various hues of yellow, amber, orange, purple and red. Anthocodials with lower hues.