Corallistes typus (Schmidt, 1870)

Fig. 36

Diagnostic features.

Small cups or plates, with undulating rims, walls 1-3 cm thick, usually with a thick peduncle. Brown with faintly pink tinges. The surface is smooth, with rims sometimes covered by sediment. Oscula not visible.

Similar species.

An integrative study of 247 “lithistid” samples from the tropical western Atlantic (Schuster et al. 2021) encounters possibly six different undescribed species of Corallistes, similar to C. typus . Species of the genus Neophrissospongia have a similar appearance to this species.

Distribution and abundance.

Southern, eastern, and northern Caribbean, Florida, and Bahamas 61-914 m deep (Pomponi et al. 2001). Abundances increase from 150 m to 900 m deep. At FGBNMS the species is widespread at 17 sites with low to medium abundance (2-100).

Ecology.

Coralline algae reefs, lower mesophotic reefs.

Ideentification.

KR, CA, SWK.

References.

van Soest and Stentoft 1988; Schuster et al. 2021.