Celleporaria vermiformis ( Waters, 1909 )

Harmelin, Jean-Georges, 2014, Alien bryozoans in the eastern Mediterranean Sea — new records from the coast of Lebanon, Zootaxa 3893 (3), pp. 301-338 : 320

Celleporaria vermiformis ( Waters, 1909)

( Fig. 9 A–E; Table 9 )

Cellepora pumicosa: Audouin 1828: 63 [ Savigny 1817: pl. 7, fig. 1.]. Non Millepora pumicosa Pallas, 1766: 254 .

Holoporella vermiformis Waters, 1909: 164 , pl. 16, figs 4–8.

Celleporaria vermiformis: Powell 1969b: 361 , fig. 1; d’Hondt 2006: 18.

? Celleporaria melanodermorpha Liu in Liu, Yin & Ma, 2001: 794, pl. 39, figs 1–6.

Non Celleporaria vermiformis: Ostrovsky et al. 2011: 77 (list).

Material examined. Specimen from Lebanon: Stn 1B, 1 colony detached from a jetty block, port of Tripoli.

Description. Colony a thick, highly calcified, multilamellar sheet, pigmented in black. Zooids recumbent at peripheral budding margin, variably long, immersed with a vertical peristome in multilayered parts of the colony; frontal shield coarsely granular to nodular, with some large marginal pseudopores. Primary orifice subcircular with rounded anter and concave poster; condyles lacking. No orificial spines, even in young zooids from colony margin (but the latter was reduced in the studied specimen). Peristome forming a collar with small pseudosinus at base of a medioproximal conical process that is variably long (to> 500 µm), raised at right angle. A minute adventitious avicularium (L = 40 µm) facing laterally at base of peristomial process, with short, oval mandible and serrated rostrum. A gigantic adventitious avicularium (L, 380 µm; W, 180 µm) replaces very occasionally the columnar process, with rostrum raised obliquely on a swollen cystid, parallel-sided or weakly concave and tip rounded, serrated with 5–7 short teeth, basally bulging, crossbar complete with tiny columella. Small adventitious avicularia may occur on the side of peristome. A single, incompletely formed, vicarious avicularium present near growing edge of colony. Ooecia numerous, rounded, with a very wide uncalcified area, visible frontally as narrow, granular hood.

Remarks. Celleporaria vermiformis is a poorly known species from the southern Red Sea. The only available specimen assigned to this species conforms fairly well to Waters’s (1909) description and figures in many respects though some details are confusing in the original description. According to the latter, this species is darkly pigmented, has a primary orifice with a slightly arcuate poster proximally bordered by a low lip or by a small, asymmetrical umbo with a minute avicularium laterally facing an adjacent notch (pseudosinus). Condyles and oral spines were not mentioned or figured by Waters. His figure 4 shows two tall columnar processes at a right angle between the autozooids instead of suboral as in the Lebanese specimen. This difference may not be significant as Waters noted that these umbones “pass up from a lower layer of zooecia” and are thus not produced by adjacent zooids from the upper layer but by underlying ones. The Lebanese specimen shares most morphological characters with C. melanodermorpha Liu in Liu, Yin & Ma, 2001, a Chinese fouling species that may be a junior synonym of C. vermiformis . The main common features are the black coloration, tall suboral columnar processes bearing a small, elliptical avicularium with serrated rostrum on the basal side, occasionally replaced by a large suboral avicularium, primary orifice with a concave poster and no condyles, lack (or extreme rarity) of vicarious avicularia and rounded ovicell with a narrow frontal edge. As in the specimen from Tripoli, small single or paired avicularia lateral to the orifice may occasionally occur in the Chinese specimens. Another Celleporaria species from the Red Sea, C. pigmentaria ( Waters, 1909) , presents very dark colonies but, according to Waters’s description, the adventive suboral avicularia are triangular (versus a rounded distal edge in C. vermiformis ). Celleporaria cristata ( Lamarck, 1816) , from Australia, also presents tall, pointed, peristomial processes; however, according to Pouyet (1978), the type specimens of this species have primary orifices with small condyles. Celleporaria vermiformis was recorded from Safaga, Egypt, Red Sea by Ostrovsky et al. (2011b), but SEM pictures of specimens from this locality posted by Ostrovsky et al. (2011a) show orifices with condyles, a feature in contradiction with this specific placement. The epiphytic bryozoan with tall pointed umbones and rounded orifices figured by Savigny (1817, pl. 7, fig. 1) was wrongly identified by Audouin (1826) as Cellepora pumicosa without indication of a Red Sea or Mediterranean origin of the specimen. It was later ascribed to C. pilaefera by Harmer (1957) and thereafter to C. vermiformis by Powell (1969b), who provided a photo of a specimen from Eilat (Gulf of Aqaba), and by d’Hondt (2006) in his revision of Savigny’s plates.

Figures

FIGURE 9. Celleporaria vermiformis (Waters, 1909), Lebanon, Stn 1 B: A, B, typical aspects of a multilayered colony, with disorderly arranged zooids and raised conical processes; C, primary orifice of non-ovicelled zooid; D, two ovicells and a conical process bearing at its base a minute avicularium facing laterally; E, gigantic adventitious avicularium at the tip of a bulging cystid proximal to the orifice. Scale bars: A, B, 200 µm; C, 50 µm; D, E, 100 µm.