MEMBRANIPORIDAE

Mead, A., Carlton, J. T., Griffiths, C. L. & Rius, M., 2011, Introduced and cryptogenic marine and estuarine species of South Africa, Journal of Natural History 45 (39 - 40), pp. 2463-2524 : 2499

Family MEMBRANIPORIDAE

Membranipora membranacea (Linnaeus, 1767) Removed

Griffiths et al. (2009) treated this European bryozoan as an introduced species in the South African fauna. However, Florence et al. (2007) have shown that the South African populations were in fact an endemic, undescribed species (newly named as Membranipora rustica ).

Conopeum seurati (Canu, 1928) Introduced

This well-known European bryozoan ( Ryland and Hayward 1977; Poluzzi and Sabelli 1985) is a classic fouling species of brackish lagoons and estuaries. Outside the European theatre, Conopeum seurati has been introduced by ship fouling to New Zealand ( Gordon and Mawatari 1992), Australia ( Wyatt et al. 2005) and the eastern United States ( Winston 1982, 1995), who speculated that the largest American populations “are located in the James River, adjacent to Jamestown, making a scenario of an early introduction from the southeastern coast of England intriguing.” [Jamestown, Virginia is an early (1607) British settlement in North America.] It has probably been introduced to, and overlooked in, many estuaries around the world so it is not surprising that it occurs in South Africa ( Awad et al. 2005), where it was collected in Saldanha (west coast) in 2001 (identification by Wayne Florence, SAM). A Conopeum species is also abundant coating the tubes of the serpulid polychaete (tubeworm) Ficopomatus enigmaticus in the brackish Zandvlei Lagoon, False Bay (southwest coast). These populations appear similar if not identical to Conopeum seurati , but this identification requires confirmation. We regard it as a ship-fouling invasion from Europe. It may have been present in South Africa for decades or centuries.