Styela plicata ( Lesueur, 1823 )

Kott, Patricia, 2008, Ascidiacea (Tunicata) from deep waters of the continental shelf of Western Australia, Journal of Natural History 42 (15 - 16), pp. 1103-1217 : 1195-1196

Styela plicata ( Lesueur, 1823)

Ascidia plicata Lesueur 1823, p. 5 .

Styela plicata Kott 1985, p. 116 and synonymy.

Distribution

Previously recorded (see Kott 1985): tropical to warm temperate waters of the Atlantic and Mediterranean; circum Australia (from Cockburn Sound, Great Australian Bight, St. Vincent Gulf, Port Phillip Bay, Port Hadley, Botany Bay, Port Stephens, Moreton Bay, Hervey Bay); Hong Kong; Japan; West Indian Ocean. It is not recorded from the tropical Western Pacific or from the eastern Pacific. New record: Western Australia CSIRO SS10/05 (Barrow I., Stn 169, 93 m, 13.12.05, QM G328132).

The pattern of its geographic range suggests that it has been introduced around the world. It is found generally in protected and often brackish and polluted waters (see Kott 1985).

Description

The species is readily identified by its deeply curved gut loop, long stomach with fine longitudinal pleats, long anal lobes, leaf-like endocarps on and in the gut loop, long

branched male follicles around the long tubular ovarian tubes, one of two on the left side of the body down-curved into the secondary gut loop.

Remarks

Only a single small specimen was taken. The location at Barrow I., an oil terminal off the north-western Australian coast, is not surprising, although its occurrence at 93 m is a surprise.