Trimuricea aff. reticulata ( Thomson & Simpson, 1909 )

Namin, Samimi & Ofwegen, Van, 2009, Some shallow water octocorals (Coelenterata: Anthozoa) of the Persian Gulf, Zootaxa 2058, pp. 1-52 : 43

publication ID	https://doi.org/ 10.5281/zenodo.186743
DOI	https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.6220202
persistent identifier	https://treatment.plazi.org/id/03A36F53-CA4B-5A44-F0EC-FD7CFD276E79
treatment provided by	Plazi
scientific name	Trimuricea aff. reticulata ( Thomson & Simpson, 1909 )
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Trimuricea aff. reticulata ( Thomson & Simpson, 1909) View in CoL

( Figs. 31a View FIGURE 31. a , 32 View FIGURE 32 –33)

Echinomuricea reticulata Thomson & Simpson, 1909: 206 View in CoL .

Material: RMNH Coel. 38785, one specimen, Farur Island, coll. S.A. Mohtarami.

Description. The colony is 16 cm high and 22 cm wide, branched in one plane, and many anastomoses form a network ( Fig. 31a View FIGURE 31. a ). Calyces dome shaped, closely set to each other, and situated all around the branches.

The polyps have a collaret and points made up of spindles which are up to 0.35 mm long; triradiates are also present in the polyps ( Fig. 32 View FIGURE 32 ).

The coenenchyme has thornscales (Fig. 33a), up to 0.40 mm long, and spindles up to 0.60 mm long (Fig. 33b); occasionally one of these spindles has a short spine. The smallest spindles have simple tubercles, the larger ones also complex tubercles.

Colour. Alive, the colony was reddish-purple, preserved it is brown. All sclerites are colourless.

Remarks. Gordon (1926: 515) recognized four species when she erected the genus Trimuricea : T. andamanensis ( Thomson & Simpson, 1909) ; T. reticulata ( Thomson & Simpson, 1909) ; T. africana Gordon, 1926 ; and T. merguiensis Gordon, 1926 . Later on Grasshoff (1999: 48–49) added a fifth species, T. caledonica . Of these T. andamanensis should be considered a species of Echinogorgia as Thomson & Simpson’s picture of sclerites (Pl. 8 Fig. 2 View FIGURE 2. a – b ) suggests. T. africana differs from the present material in lacking anastomoses, and T. merguiensis differs in having “clubbed spindles in the coenenchyme”, i.e. spindles which are wider at one end. T. caledonica has thornscales with much shorter spine ( Grasshoff 1999: Fig. 81; Fabricius & Alderslade 2001: 196). T. reticulata resembles the present material, the thornscales and spindles look similar, although it should be considered that the few drawings of sclerites presented in the literature ( Thomson & Simpson, 1909: Pl. 8 Fig. 6 View FIGURE 6 ; Grasshoff 1999: Fig. 80) are all a bit schematic, and too few were given to obtain certainty about the amount of variation of these sclerites. Thomson & Simpson reported their specimens had polyp spindles up to 0.7 mm long, twice as long as those of the present Persian Gulf specimen. According to us a difference like that is big enough to establish a new species, however, Grasshoff depicted much smaller polyp sclerites with his re-examination of the holotype (up to 0.28 mm long). Because of these uncertainties in the existing literature and pending a new re-examination of the type material we decided to identify the present material as T. aff. reticulata .