Aglaophenia raridentata Fraser, 1944a

Calder, Dale R. & Choong, Henry H. C., 2018, Names of hydroids (Cnidaria, Hydrozoa) established by Charles McLean Fraser (1872 - 1946), excluding those from Allan Hancock Expeditions, Zootaxa 4487 (1), pp. 1-83 : 60

Aglaophenia raridentata Fraser, 1944a

Aglaophenia apocarpa Αllman, 1877: 41, pl. 24, figs. 5–9.

Aglaophenia elegans Nutting, 1900: 94 , pl. 19, figs. 3, 4 [invalid junior primary homonym of Aglaophenia elegans Lamouroux, 1816 ].

Aglaophenia raridentata Fraser, 1944a: 387 , pl. 83, figs. 376a, b [replacement name for Aglaophenia elegans Nutting, 1900 , not Aglaophenia elegans Lamouroux, 1816 ].

Syntypes. USNM 18645: USA, Florida, Straits of Florida, Florida Keys, 8 miles (13 km) off American Shoal Light, State University of Iowa Bahamas Expedition of 1893, Sta. 62, 128– 146 m, 29 June 1893; two slides.

USNM 69685: USA, Florida, Straits of Florida, Florida Keys, 8 miles (13 km) off American Shoal Light, State University of Iowa Bahamas Expedition of 1893, Sta. 62, 128– 146 m, 29 June 1893; ethanol.

Type locality. USA, Florida: off Sand Key , 70–80 fm (128–146 m) ( Nutting 1900).

Current status. Invalid.

Remarks. The binomen Aglaophenia raridentata was proposed by Fraser (1944a) as a new replacement name for Aglaophenia elegans Nutting, 1900 (not Aglaophenia elegans Lamouroux, 1816 ). The two therefore have the same type locality and the same name-bearing type material (ICZN Arts. 67.8, 72.7).

A degree of uncertainty exists about specimens that qualify as name-bearing types of new species described by Nutting (1900), including Aglaophenia elegans . A procedure was established by him whereby “…three series of slides [were prepared] from the same type specimen… These series were then distributed to the United States National Museum, the Museum of the State University of Iowa, and the private collection of the author” ( Nutting 1900: 58). In Nutting’s monograph, catalogue numbers were provided for slides at the “USNM” (NMNH) and at the university museum at Iowa (designated as “ Type slides”), but not for the “ type specimen” from which the slides were made, nor for slides in the Nutting Collection. Unless other evidence is found, the original “ type specimen” cannot clearly be identified as such. The NMNH online database lists as types only those specimens on numbered slides.

In his account of Aglaophenia elegans, Nutting (1900) explicitly assigned type status to material on slides at the NMNH (USNM 18645), at the Museum of the State University of Iowa (No. 15354), and in his personal collection (unnumbered). The latter two collections are likely to have been sent to the NMNH in a transfer of collections from Iowa after Nutting’s death ( Calder 2004: 23). It is unclear whether those slides were combined to form part of the syntype material listed above. Meanwhile, material of the species in ethanol at the NMNH (USNM 69685) is part of the same collection as the syntype slides, but it is not classified in the online database as part of the type series. It is regarded here as part of the syntype series.

Aglaophenia elegans and its objective synonym A. raridentata are subjective junior synonyms of A. apocarpa Allman, 1877 , a hydroid described from the same area (Sand Key) in the Straits of Florida ( Bedot 1921; Bogle 1975; Cairns et al. 2002). As for the binomen A. apocarpa , confusion persists over whether it or A. lophocarpa Allman, 1877 has precedence when the two are considered synonyms. As First Reviser (ICZN Art. 24.2), Bedot (1921) assigned precedence to the name A. apocarpa (see Calder 1997: 54).