Stolonica reducta ( Sluiter, 1904 )

Kott, Patricia, 2006, Observations on non-didemnid ascidians from Australian waters (1), Journal of Natural History 40 (3 - 4), pp. 169-234 : 220-221

Stolonica reducta ( Sluiter, 1904)

Styela reducta Sluiter 1904, p 72 .

Stolonica reducta: Kott 1985, p 236 and synonymy.

Distribution

Previously recorded (see Kott 1985): Western Australia (Trigg I.), Coral Sea (Lihou and Marian Reefs); Indonesia. New record: Queensland (18.845 ° S, 146.795 ° E, 7.5 m) .

Description

Zooids are small, dome-shaped, sessile and black in preservative, the black spherical pigment cells obscuring the body organs. Three branchial folds are on each side. The open gut loop on the posterior half of the left side is slightly curved; the pear-shaped stomach with about eight branchial folds and a slightly curved caecum occupies the proximal half of the ascending limb of the gut loop. Small endocarps are on the body wall but gonads were not detected in the newly recorded highly contracted zooids.

Remarks

The newly recorded zooids resemble those previously described in their size, shape, naked test, number of branchial folds, course of the gut loop and shape of the caecum. The stomach has fewer folds and is shorter than Kott (1985) reported in specimens from the Coral Sea and the spherical black pigment cells have not previously been reported. These differences could be the result of intraspecific variation or two species could be involved.