Lissoclinum timorense (Sluiter, 1909)

Hirose, Euichi, Iskandar, Budhi Hascaryo & Wardiatno, Yusli, 2014, Photosymbiotic ascidians from Pari Island (Thousand Islands, Indonesia), ZooKeys 422, pp. 1-10 : 5-6

Taxon classification Animalia Aplousobranchia Didemnidae

Lissoclinum timorense (Sluiter, 1909) Fig. 2E

Didemnum timorensis Sluiter, 1909

Didemnum voeltzkowi Michaelsen, 1920

Lissoclinum timorensis (Sluiter, 1909)

Lissoclinum voeltzkowi (Michaelsen, 1920)

Specimens.

MZB. Asc. 00005

Habitat.

Dead coral skeletons and clefts between coral limestones in back reef and shallow reef flat.

Remarks.

Colonies had linguiform projections of the tunic around the colony periphery and sometimes on the colony surface. Tunic contains both stellate and globular spicules (Fig. 1E, inset). Prochloron cells were distributed within the common cloacal cavity.

Because the zooids of Lissoclinum bistratum and Lissoclinum timorense are very similar in morphology, Monniot and Monniot (2001) proposed that Lissoclinum timorense is a junior synonym of Lissoclinum bistratum . Typical colonies of the two species are easily distinguishable by the presence or absence of linguiform projections on the colony surfaces, although intermediate forms between the two exist. Kott (2001) discriminated the two species based on the presence or absence of stellate spicules. However, the two species defined by spicule type could not be discriminated by molecular phylogeny based on partial COI gene sequences ( Hirose et al. 2010b). We did not find Lissoclinum bistratum -type colonies in the present survey, although they are common in reef crests of the Ryukyus.