Aglantha digitale (O.F. Müller, 1776), O.F. Muller, 1776

Gravili, Cinzia, Vito, Doris De, Camillo, Cristina Gioia Di, Martell, Luis, Piraino, Stefano & Boero, Ferdinando, 2015, The non-Siphonophoran Hydrozoa (Cnidaria) of Salento, Italy with notes on their life-cycles: an illustrated guide, Zootaxa 3908 (1), pp. 1-187 : 163

Aglantha digitale (O.F. Müller, 1776)

Fig. 116

See Kramp (1961) for a complete synonymy.

Material examined. HCUS-S 122 (Hydrozoa Collection, University of Salento—fauna of the Salento Peninsula).

Description (after Kramp 1959; Russell 1953):

Medusa. Umbrella cylindrical, 10–40 mm high, about two times higher than wide, with a small conical apical projection, mesoglea of walls thin, subumbrellar muscles strong; manubrium small, on a slender, long, conical peduncle, almost as long as subumbrellar cavity; mouth with 4 simple lips; 8 long, sausage-shaped gonads, arising from the radial canals near the apex of the subumbrella and hanging freely in subumbrellar cavity; 80 or more solid marginal tentacles with a core of single endodermal chordal cells; 8 free statocysts. Colours: local varieties differ in colour.

Cnidome. Microbasic euryteles and stenoteles.

Seasonality. April (for a review see Bouillon et al. 2004); December ( Moscatello et al. 2004) in Salento waters.

Reproductive period. April (Gili 1986) in the western Mediterranean Sea.

Distribution. Atlantic, Indo-Pacific, Mediterranean ( Kramp 1924, 1959; Arai & Brinckmann-Voss 1980; Medel & López-González 1996; Bouillon et al. 2004; Gravili et al. 2008a).

Records in Salento. Common in the Salento Peninsula ( Moscatello et al. 2004); Grotta del Ciolo ( Moscatello & Belmonte 2007).

Remarks. Kramp (1924) described this species from the middle of the Strait of Gibraltar and estimated that it was attempting to enter in the Mediterranean where this species had however never been found (see Kramp 1959, 1961; Goy 1973); afterwards Gili (1986) collected 2 specimens in front of Barcelona.

References. Kramp (1924, 1959, 1961), Russell (1953), Gili (1986), Gili et al. (1987), Medel & López- González (1996), Bouillon et al. (2004), Moscatello et al. (2004), Gravili (2006), Moscatello & Belmonte (2007), Gravili et al. (2008a).

Figures

FIGURE 116. Aglantha digitale: adult medusa (drawn by C. G. Di Camillo). Scale bar: 3.0 cm.