Cranosina coronata (Hincks, 1881)

Fig. 6

Membranipora coronata Hincks, 1881: 147, pl. 10, fig. 1.

Cranosina coronata – Chimonides & Cook 1994: 44, fig. 1a.

Material

MALAYSIA: MSL BRY011, Pantai Pasir Hitam, Langkawi, collected intertidally encrusting cobbles from coral reef.

Description

Colony encrusting, multiserial, unilamellar; growing edge stepped, revealing distolateral pore windows, generally three in each distolateral wall. Ancestrula and early astogeny not observed. Autozooids subhexagonal to almost diamond-shaped, stout, about 0.40–0.50 mm long by 0.34–0.44 mm wide; zooidal boundaries marked by a narrow fissure; opesia occupying most of frontal surface, ovoidal; cryptocyst well developed proximally and laterally, sloping inwards, pustulose, the pustules tending to be radially aligned, especially towards inner side of cryptocyst; gymnocyst sometimes present distolaterally; spines lacking. Ovicells inconspicuous, ooecia small. Intramural buds present. Avicularia present distally of autozooids (Fig. 6C), small, transversely orientated, with long, open-ended rostrum.

Remarks

According to Tilbrook et al. (2001: p. 45), Cranosina coronata is common throughout the Indo-West Pacific.