Echinogorgia squamata ( Nutting, 1910 )

Ramvilas, Ghosh, Alderslade, Philip & Ranjeet, Kutty, 2023, The taxonomy of Indian gorgonians: an assessment of the descriptive records of gorgonians (Anthozoa: Octocorallia: Alcyonacea) recorded as occurring in the territorial waters of India, along with neighbouring regions and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, and the highlighting of perceived unethical practice, Zootaxa 5236 (1), pp. 1-124 : 55

? Echinogorgia squamata ( Nutting, 1910)

Placogorgia squamata Nutting, 1910: 81 , pl. 12, figs. 2–2a, pl. 22, fig.8. ( Indonesia).

Opinion: There is no evidence that this species occurs in the region.

Justification:

These Indian records seem to be either invalid or unconfirmable: Fernando 2011: 40–41, pl. 17, fig. 2–2c (Pamban); Fernando et al. 2017: 81, pl. 35, fig. 1–1c (Pamban).

Literature analysis: The descriptions of the Indian material as Discogorgia squamata by Fernando (2011) and Fernando et al. (2017) are identical, and in their list of synonymies they cite “ Placogorgia squamata Nutting, 1910: 81 ” and “ Discogorgia squamata Kükenthal, 1919: 812 ”. This Kükenthal reference appears to have a typographic error for page 842 where the genus Discogorgia is established and assigned as a senior synonym to “ Placogorgia (part.) Auct.”, and the Indian authors have apparently assumed Nutting’s species P. squamata should be included. But in the same tome, Kükenthal (1919: 277, 280) stated that the new species of Placogorgia established by Nutting belong largely to the genus Echinogorgia , including P. squamata , and that proper identifications could not be made because Nutting did not provide adequate descriptions and the original specimens needed re-examining. Placogorgia squamata appears under its original name in Kükenthal’s 1924 publication with the comment that it is probably an Echinogorgia .

Without a more detailed description of the colony and the sclerites it is not possible to accurately ascertain the genus of the material described by Fernando (2011) and Fernando et al. (2017), which is reported to have: some fusiform sclerites that resemble the scaphoids of Pseudopterogorgia ; and “irregular shaped, mostly ellipsoid or fusiform warty discs” averaging 0.48–0.64 mm long, some reaching 0.97 mm, that are concave on the “subsurface” and finely tuberculated on the “flat surface”. Nutting did not mention the size of the sclerites in his material, but he did say there were no large spindles, and the largest of the two sclerites in his figure 8, plate 22, is about 0.27 mm across. The Indian material seems to be quite different to that described by Nutting and is clearly not a species of Echinogorgia .