Cladocoryne floccosa Rotch, 1871

Castro Mendonça, Luana M., Parisotto Guimarães, Carmen R. & Haddad, Maria A., 2022, Taxonomy and diversity of hydroids (Cnidaria: Hydrozoa) of Sergipe, Northeast Brazil, Zoologia (e 21032) 39, pp. 1-65 : 6

Cladocoryne floccosa Rotch, 1871 ( Fig. 3A )

Synonyms available from: Schuchert (2006).

Cladocoryne floccosa Rotch,1871: 228 ;– Migotto, 1996: 17, fig. 4a, b.

Description: Colonies erect, polyps up to 3.6 mm high. Stem 0.3–2.7 mm high, 0.06–0.21 mm wide, unbranched or with a small branch, without hydranths, covered by smooth perisarc with a few annulations. Hydranth cylindrical, 0.24–1.1 mm high, 0.14–0.62 mm wide, and with a dome-shaped hypostome. Two whorls of capitate tentacles, the oral one with 6 small ones and the aboral with 9–14 branched tentacles scattered over the hydranth carrying rows of small pedicellate tentacles. Gonophores spherical, cryptomedusoid, with short pedicels, 0.23–0.37 mm high, 0.18–0.32 mm wide. One gonophore per polyp approximately in the middle of the hydranth body between the aboral tentacles. Nematocysts macrobasic euryteles in the hydranth body, undischarged (32.2–42.7 × 11.3–16.1 µm).

Material examined: VB – abundant colonies with and without gonophores from the dry and rainy seasons; SE – few colonies with and without gonophores from the dry season; CZUFS CNI-00040; CNI-00071; CNI-0072.

Stations: VB – C1P12, C1P56, C2P12, C2P56, C3P34; SE – C1P56, C2P56.

Distribution: Brazil – Pernambuco ( Calder and Maÿal 1998), Bahia ( Grohmann et al. 2003), Espírito Santo ( Grohmann et al. 1997), São Paulo ( Migotto 1996, Oliveira et al. 2006, Cunha and Jacobucci 2010, Oliveira and Marques 2011, Silveira and Morandini 2011, Fernandez et al. 2014, 2015), and Santa Catarina ( Miranda et al. 2011). World distribution – considered a circumglobal species with records from tropical and temperate waters of Mediterranean Sea, Indian Ocean and Pacific Ocean ( Millard 1975, Schuchert 2006).

Remarks:Polyps found on plates, Bryozoa, Polychaeta tubes, Ostreidae, Ascidiacea , barnacles (Cirripedia), and on the hydroids Corydendrium parasiticum , Diphasia digitalis , Eudendrium merulum , Obelia oxydentata , Pennaria disticha , and Plumularia floridana . Cladocoryne floccosa was found fertile in the rainy and dry seasons.

Figures

Figure 3. (A) Cladocoryne floccosa, detail of a polyp showing a hydranth with gonophore (red arrow); (B) Coryne sp. 1 general view of a polyp; (C) Coryne sp. 2 general view of a polyp; (D-F) Zanclea migottoi: (D) general view of two polyps, one of them with gonophores (red arrow); (E) detail of the medial portion of the hydranth showing a group of nematocysts at the tentacle base (circle) and a discharged nematocyst (red arrow); (F) detail of the hydranth with two undischarged nematocysts (red arrows).