Muricea squarrosa Verrill, 1869

Breedy, Odalisca & Guzman, Hector M., 2015, A revision of the genus Muricea Lamouroux, 1821 (Anthozoa, Octocorallia) in the eastern Pacific. Part I: Eumuricea Verrill, 1869 revisited, ZooKeys 537, pp. 1-32 : 11-16

Taxon classification Animalia Alcyonacea Plexauridae

Muricea squarrosa Verrill, 1869 Figures 6, 7, 8

Muricea (Eumuricea) squarrosa Verrill, 1869a: 423-424.

Eumuricea squarrosa Kükenthal, 1924: 159.

Muricea squarrosa Harden, 1979: 159-160.

Material.

Lectotype (here designated): YPM 1561a, dry (with sponge), Pearl Islands, Panamá, F.H. Bradley, 1866, no further data; YPM 1563 [fragment of lectotype, possible figured specimen ( Verrill 1869a)]. Paralectotypes: MCZ 4975; MCZ 7017; USNM 33592 (YPM 1561); YPM 1561b-d, YPM 566, data as for the lectotype. YPM 1636 (previously identified as Eumuricea hispida ), ethanol preserved, Pearl Islands, F.H. Bradley, 1866, no further data.

Other material.

COSTA RICA: UCR 587, dry, Pitaya Beach, Guanacaste, Pacific coast, Costa Rica, 20-23 m, J. Cortés, 16 June, 1991; UCR 1742, ethanol preserved, Bajo Negro, Marino Ballena National Park, 25 m, O. Breedy,13 April 2008; UCR 2261, ethanol preserved, Isla Larga Oeste, Manuel Antonio National Park, 19 m, O. Breedy and H. Guzman, 6 February 2012; UCR 2262, ethanol preserved, Isla Larga, Manuel Antonio National Park, 25 m, O. Breedy and H. Guzman, 7 February 2012; UCR 2396, ethanol preserved, Marino Ballena National Park, 25 m, O. Breedy, 27 April 2002; UCR 2410; 2414, ethanol preserved, La Danta, Santa Elena Bay, 35 m, O. Breedy and Minor Lara, 10 August 2014; UCR 2418-2419, ethanol preserved, Bajo Mixta, Golfo Dulce, 21 m, O. Breedy and H. Guzman, 7 February 2009 ECUADOR: IIN 25, dry, Bajo Lunes, Reserva de Producción Faunística Marino Costera Puntilla de Santa Elena, 18 m, P. Martínez, F. Rivera, R. Nabot and O. Breedy, 21 July 2010; IIN 47, dry, Gigima, Reserva de Producción Faunística Marino Costera Puntilla de Santa Elena, 14 m, P. Martínez, F. Rivera, R. Nabot and O. Breedy, 22 July 2010. PANAMÁ: STRI 561, 563, 569-571, ethanol preserved, Islas Viudas, Chiriquí Gulf, Panamá, 20 m, H. Guzman, 18 April 2003; STRI 867-868, ethanol preserve, Achotines, Chiriquí Gulf, 10 m, H. Guzman, 5 May 2004; STRI 575A, ethanol preserved, Isla Saboga, 1-5 m, H. Guzman, 14 December 2001. PERÚ: UPCH-CZA 280, 284, 291, 296, 298, 302, 411, dry, Canoas de Punta Sal, Tumbes, 10-13 m, Y. Hooker, 2 July 2011; UPCH-CZA 410, Cabo Blanco, Piura, 10-13 m, Y. Hooker, 13 August 2012.

Description.

The lectotype is a 14 cm tall and 12 cm wide colony, flabellate, spreading in one plane. It has a sponge attached to the main branches (Fig. 6A). The branching is mostly dichotomous. A short stem, 0.4 cm long, 60 mm diameter, arises from an irregular holdfast, 23 mm in diameter, covered by a layer of coenenchyme, but deprived of calyces. The stem subdivides in two main branches that produce secondary branches subdividing up to 3 times. All branches are about the same in diameter, 40-80 mm (including calyces), with tapered ends. The branches are separated at distances of 0.5-6 cm and spread at small angles and bend upwards in a curve. The branchlets are situated almost perpendicular to the main branch. Undivided terminal branches are up to 40 mm long. The axes are brown at the base, and lighter at the branchlets. The calyces are all around the branches, close together, about 14 calyces/cm. They are mostly directed perpendicular to the branches, but also incline upwards at small angles (Fig. 6B). They are tubular and elongated, up to 2.6 mm long and up to 1.75 mm wide with clavate tips, between the larger calyces there are a number of smaller ones (Fig. 6B). The remains of the polyps are at the summit of the tubular calyces, the apertures are covered by anthocodial sclerites. The coenenchyme has a few layers of sclerites and is basically composed of the same types as the calyx spindles. They are straight or with a slight curvature. They are mostly acute, but can have one end blunt or lobed. They are unilateral spinous with the inner side with complex warts, crowded together so much that their processes anastomose, while on the outer side there are less and sparse spines. Some calycular spindles are club-like with warty elongated handles, straight or curved, and various types of head arrangement, from few conical spines to sharp and long spines crowding the upper part or along the outer side of the sclerite; they have stout terminal spikes (Fig. 7A). The spindles reach up to 1.3 mm long and 0.23 mm wide (Fig. 7A), Verrill (1869a) reported spindles up to 1.8 mm long. They are of a dull yellow to a light brownish colour. The axial sheath is composed of whitish and colourless, tuberculate spindles, 0.14-0.30 mm long and 0.03-0.075 mm wide (Fig. 7C) and irregular forms with- the same range of size, and immature forms 0.06-0.07 mm long and 0.015-0.02 mm wide. The anthocodial sclerites are of a pale yellow colour to colourless, mostly club-like as described for the calycular spindles, but shorter (Fig. 7B). The colour of the colony light brown.

Variability.

The other material examined is very consistent with the lectotype, variation is basically in the number of branches and size of the colonies. The largest colony measured was a specimen from Perú reaching 35 cm tall and 30 cm wide (Fig. 8C, in situ). The colony branching is abundant in some colonies (Fig. 8C, D). The colour of the colonies when alive is reddish brown (Fig. 8 A–D). This colour fades in dry or ethanol preserved colonies. Fresh collected colonies turn the alcohol into a dark brownish colour. The polyps are pale yellow to whitish (Fig. 8 A–D).

Distribution.

Panamá: Gulf of Chiriquí, Pearl Islands, 10-20 m. Costa Rica: Nicoya Gulf, Santa Elena Peninsula, Marino Ballena National Park, Golfo Dulce, from 25-40 m. Colombia: Málaga Bay ( Prahl et al. 1986, specimens in CRBMco). Ecuador: Puntilla de Santa Elena, Salinas 18-20 m. Perú: Cabo Blanco, Canoas de Punta Sal, 10-13 m deep. Nicaragua: La Flor, Hueco de Diego, South Pacific, 2-5 m. The species has a wide bathymetric range from 2 m to 40 m, the deepest range being found in Costa Rica.

Remarks.

This species was described by Verrill (1869a) with specimens from Pearl Islands without a holotype designation and appropriate illustrations. We designate YPM 1561a as the lectotype of Muricea squarrosa to establish the identity of this species and avoid future misinterpretation.

The main difference to separate this species from Muricea hispida and Muricea tubigera is that the calyces are shorter and more distantly placed. Other differences were discussed above (under Muricea hispida ).