Pachycerianthus fimbriatus McMurrich, 1910

Stampar, Sergio N., Reimer, James D., Maronna, Maximiliano M., Lopes, Celine S. S., Ceriello, Hellen, Santos, Thais B., Acuna, Fabian H. & Morandini, Andre C., 2020, Ceriantharia (Cnidaria) of the World: an annotated catalogue and key to species, ZooKeys 952, pp. 1-63 : 1

31 Pachycerianthus fimbriatus McMurrich, 1910

(?) Cerianthus elongatus Kwietniewski, 1898: 426-427; Pax 1910: 167

Pachycerianthus fimbriatus McMurrich, 1910: 35-38; Carlgren 1912a: 44-47; Arai 1971: 1677-1680; Arai 1972: 311-317; Arai and Walder 1973: 1086-1088, 1090; Arai and Karakashian 1973: 719-720, 723-724; Tiffon and Hugon 1977: 289-290; Uchida 1979: 188; Carter 1995: 6; Fautin 1998: 135; Arai 1985: 47-48; Pirtle et al. 2012: 1896, 1905-1906; Stampar et al. 2014b: 350, 352

Pachycerianthus plicatus Carlgren, 1924: 182-186, 195; den Hartog 1997: 352; Arai 1971: 1677; 1680

(?) Pachycerianthus torreyi Arai, 1965: 205-210; Arai 1971: 1677; 1680

Type locality.

Cebu, Philippines.

Distribution.

Sulu Sea and Celebes Sea, Philippines, and Indonesia, (?) Pacific Coast of US and Canada; shallow waters.

Remarks.

This species forms part of a taxonomic problem. The description of P. fimbriatus was based on a study of 15 specimens collected mainly from the Celebes Sea, Philippines, by McMurrich (1910). In the same study, McMurrich argued that Cerianthus elongatus was the same as the new species P. fimbriatus , and considered Kwietniewski’s (1898) description as incomplete and invalid. McMurrich (1910) also argued that Cerianthus nobilis described by Haddon and Shackleton (1893), based on specimens from North Australia, could also be the same species, but specimens were not available for comparison. Later, Arai (1965) described a new species from the Pacific Coast of North America, P. torreyi . The same author in 1971 recognized that this species was highly correlated with McMurrich’s P. fimbriatus from the Celebes Sea. Thus, Arai (1971) considered P. torreyi to be a junior synonym of P. fimbriatus . However, the geographical distribution is disjunct by 14,000 km, and it is likely that a more detailed study with the inclusion of molecular data will present different results. In our opinion, P. torreyi should be a valid species.

Type material.

The provenance data of a specimen in the Natural History Museum at London, NHMUK 1889.11.25.64, is coherent with the locality and dates in the original description, but it is impossible to make an exact connection between the materials.