Halisiphonia spongicola Haeckel, 1889

Marques, Antonio Carlos, Cantero, Alvaro Luis Peña & Migotto, Alvaro Esteves, 2006, Revision of Halisiphonia Allman, 1888 (Cnidaria, Hydrozoa, Hebellidae), with comments on its taxonomic position, Journal of Natural History 40 (17 - 18), pp. 1047-1062 : 1059

Halisiphonia spongicola Haeckel, 1889

Halisiphonia spongicola Haeckel 1889, p 77 –78, Plate 4 Figure 9; Kramp 1932, p 40–41; Kramp 1951, p 123; Rees and Vervoort 1987, p 34.

Type specimen

Rees and Vervoort (1987) made no remarks on the type series of the species. The material is not in the museum collections that we consulted and in which it could have been deposited. We believe the type material is lost.

Type locality

Original data are ‘‘ Challenger’ ’ Sta. 241, northwestern Pacific, off Yokohama, 35 ° 419N, 157 ° 429E, 4206 m, and ‘‘Challenger’’ Sta. 272, ESE of Christmas Island, 03 ° 489S, 152 ° 569W, 4755 m, both on keratose sponges (see Rees and Vervoort 1987, p 34) .

Remarks

Halisiphonia spongicola differs from all other species of Halisiphonia in the shape of the gonothecae, ‘‘not compressed or spatuliform, with a slit-shaped opening; their transverse section and the distal opening are circular’’ ( Haeckel 1889, p 77, Plate 4 Figure 9). The frontal outline of the gonotheca, however, appears similar to those of the other Halisiphonia species. Because the type material is likely lost and its original description does not include crucial details, we presently consider Halisiphonia spongicola as species inquirenda, and suspect that it could even belong to a different genus.