Lovenella clausa ( Lovén, 1836 )

Gil, Marta & Ramil, Fran, 2025, Hydroids (Cnidaria, Hydrozoa) from Guinea Bissau, Zootaxa 5577 (1), pp. 1-89 : 18-19

Lovenella clausa ( Lovén, 1836)

Campanularia clausa Lovén, 1836: 262 .

Lovenella clausa : Hincks, 1869: 177−178, pl. XXXII fig. 2.— Patriti, 1970: 32, fig. 38.—Ramil, 1988: 146−148, pl. VI.— Álvarez Claudio, 1993: 119−112, fig. 20.— Cornelius, 1995a: 162−165, fig. 36.— Ramil et al., 1998: 191−192, fig. 3B.— Peña Cantero & García Carrascosa, 2002: 49−52, fig. 10F. — Vervoort, 2006: 222−223, fig. 9C.

Material examined. CCLME 2012-404 , stn SL-04, 10º48’29’’N, 16º34’57’’W, 32 m, 18-V-2012: one colony with a gonotheca growing on a bryozoan .

Remarks. In the colony studied herein, the distal half of the hydrothecal wall was undulated and the gonotheca was completely ringed, whereas the gonothecae described by Cornelius (1995a) had only slightly undulated walls.

Our finding represents the first record of L. clausa for Guinea-Bissau.

Biology. Usually, L. clausa has been found growing on gastropod and bivalve shells (Ramil 1988; Ramil et al. 1998; Peña Cantero & García Carrascosa 2002), Turritella shells inhabited by the sipunculid Phascolion strombus (Montagu, 1804) ( Teissier 1965; Ramil 1988), algae ( Cornelius 1995a), Amathia sp. ( Peña Cantero & García Carrascosa 2002), and the scaphopod Antalis novemcostata (Lamarck, 1818) ( Ramil et al. 1988) . In the northern hemisphere, gonothecae have been found in January, March, April and June–September, but most frequently in the boreal autumn (Ramil 1988; Álvarez Claudio 1993; Cornelius 1995a).

Our material was found growing on a bryozoan. A gonotheca was observed in May.

Distribution. This species has an East-Atlantic distribution, from Sweden ( Hincks 1869) to the Cape Verde Islands ( Vervoort 2006). In the Mediterranean, the species has been reported from the Alboran Sea, but additional records are doubtful ( Peña Cantero & García Carrascosa 2002). In West Africa, it has been collected from Morocco ( Patriti 1970) and the Cape Verde Islands ( Vervoort 2006). Its bathymetric distribution ranges from 0 ( Cornelius 1995a) to 161 m depth ( Álvarez Claudio 1993).

Our material was collected at a depth of 32 m, and represents the southernmost record of this species for the Atlantic.