Olindiidae Haeckel, 1879

Calder, Dale R., 2010, Some anthoathecate hydroids and limnopolyps (Cnidaria, Hydrozoa) from the Hawaiian archipelago 2590, Zootaxa 2590 (1), pp. 1-91 : 73

Family Olindiidae Haeckel, 1879

Olindiadae Haeckel, 1879: 252 [emended to Olindiidae by Bigelow (1909: 101)].

Diagnosis. Limnomedusoid polyps small, solitary or colonial; hydrorhiza present or absent. Hydranths atentaculate, or with one tentacle, or with a distal whorl or tuft of tentacles, conical to club-shaped, usually naked; mouth and gastric cavity present; asexual reproduction frequently occurring by frustules, or fission, or cysts.

Gonophores, where known, fixed or free eumedusoids, or medusae. Medusae, when present, typically dome-shaped to flattened; radial canals simple, unbranched; centripetal canals present or absent; sense organs internal marginal vesicles; gonads on radial canals (except on manubrium in Limnocnida Günther, 1893 ).

Remarks. Olindiidae Haeckel, 1879 , the largest family in the order Limnomedusae Kramp, 1938 with about 18 genera and 50 species ( Schuchert 2009), is considered paraphyletic ( Daly et al. 2007). Several taxa are obscure and of uncertain status. Jankowski (2001) suggested that freshwater medusae and their marine relatives are both polyphyletic and relatively recent in origin. Collins et al. (2006) found a single origin of the freshwater Limnomedusae ( Craspedacusta Lankester, 1880 + Limnocnida Günther, 1893 + Astrohydra Hashimoto, 1981 ), with the brackish genus Maeotias Ostroumoff, 1896 as the sister lineage.

There has been inconsistency in the spelling of the name of this family, as Olindiadae, Olindiidae , Olindiadidae , and Olindiasidae , because of uncertainty as to the stem of the type genus Olindias F. Müller, 1861 originally used in forming the name. According to Commissioner Miguel Alonso-Zarazaga of the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature (personal communication, 16 April 2010), the name Olindias is a Greek-like word of unknown origin, regarded as a “nomen proprium” ( Haeckel 1879; Moreira and Yamashita 1972). The stem of this name for the purposes of the code is that adopted by the author who established the new family (ICN Art. 29.3.3). Haeckel (1879) founded this family as Olindiadae, yet he formed other family-group names in his monograph by adding the suffixes –IDAE or -INAE to the stems of their type genera. It is thus unclear from Haeckel’s work whether he intended the stem to be Olindi-, or as a Greek substantive having the stem Olindiad-. The names Olindiadae and Olindiasidae , the latter suggested by Moreira and Yamashita (1972), are nomenclaturally incorrect. The spelling adopted here is the more widely used Olindiidae , as emended by Bigelow (1909).

The gender of the genus name Olindias was not specified by F. Müller (1861), and it cannot be determined from the only originally included species ( O. sambiquensis F. Müller, 1861 ). Thus, the name is to be treated as masculine (ICZN Art. 30.2.3). This is of relevance in the correct spelling of certain species-group names combined with Olindias [e.g. O. formosa ( Goto, 1903) , should be O. formosus ].