Disporella Gray, 1848

Taylor, Paul D., Harmelin, Jean-Georges, Waeschenbach, Andrea & Bouchon, Claude, 2021, Disporella guada sp. nov., an erect-ramose rectangulate cyclostome (Bryozoa, Stenolaemata) from the Caribbean Sea: convergent evolution in bryozoan colony morphology, European Journal of Taxonomy 773, pp. 1-18 : 3-4

Genus Disporella Gray, 1848

Disporella Gray, 1848: 138 .

Type species

Discopora hispida Fleming, 1828 ( Fleming 1828: 530) .

Remarks

Disporella was introduced by Gray (1848) in a list of animal specimens in the collections of the British Museum. He included only one species in the genus, albeit with several synonyms, listed by him as Tubulipora hispida . Gray (1848: 138) diagnosed Disporella thus: “Orbicular, edge thin, tubes in radiating ridges”. This ‘diagnosis’ by itself is totally inadequate to recognise the genus. However, Fleming’s (1828: 530) description of the type species (as Discopora hispida ) provides some additional information: “Margin thin and waved, the cells distributed or radiated, with denticulated orifices. Coral resembling the cups and foliage of flowers…. Breadth nearly an inch; hispid, the cells seem distributed over the whole surface, and more vertical than the preceding [ Discopora verrucaria ]; there are, however, waved porous grooves, and the cells seem disposed on each side of these in irregular transverse rows, united or free, short, with expanding orifices, dividing into irregular spinous processes. This species is very common in Zetland [= Shetland], adhering to Cellepora cervicornis [= Smittina cervicornis (Pallas, 1766) ]...”

As remarked by Alvarez (1992), there is no known holotype of Disporella hispida , nor are there any Fleming specimens from which a lectotype could be chosen. Consequently, Alvarez (1992) chose NHMUK 99.7.1.4187 as the neotype of D. hispida . This specimen is the holotype of Lichenopora mamillata Lagaaij, 1952 , which Alvarez considered to be a junior synonym of D. hispida ; Lagaaij (1952: 181) had introduced his new species for a form referred to by Hincks (1880) as Lichenopora hispida (Fleming) var. b. It was noted by Gordon & Taylor (2001: 259) that the neotype chosen by Alvarez (1992) is neither topotypic – it was collected at Tenby in Wales, not the Shetland Islands almost 1000 km to the north – nor does it conform to the original description given by Fleming (1828) because it is not hispid (i.e., covered in spines) and the apertures (orifices) are not ‘expanded’.

Stabilization of Disporella awaits comprehensive morphological description of topotype specimens matching Fleming’s (1828) original description of the type species, coupled with molecular characterization. Until this is achieved, the genus name is here used as applied, for instance, by Hayward & Ryland (1985), Alvarez (1992), and Gordon & Taylor (2001).