Muricea horrida Moebius , 1861

Breedy, Odalisca & Guzman, Hector M., 2015, A revision of the genus Muricea Lamouroux, 1821 (Anthozoa, Octocorallia) in the eastern Pacific. Part I: Eumuricea Verrill, 1869 revisited, ZooKeys 537, pp. 1-32 : 11

Taxon classification Animalia Alcyonacea Plexauridae

Muricea horrida Moebius, 1861 (sp. dubia) Figure 5

Muricea horrida Möbius, 1861: 11-12; Kölliker 1865: 135; Harden 1979: 152.

Muricea (Eumuricea) horrida Verrill, 1869a: 423.

Eumuricea horrida Kükenthal, 1924: 151.

Material.

Plate 3, figs 5-8 ( Möbius 1861), no material available.

Holotype figured. According to Möbius (1861) the holotype was deposited in the Hamburg Museum (ZMH); however, the material was not housed there anymore (P. Stiewe and H. Roggenbuck, ZMH, pers. comm. 2011).

Description

(after Möbius 1861 and Verrill 1869a). The figured specimen is a fragment of a 20 cm tall and 22 cm wide colony with a thin, 6 cm diameter holdfast attached to a rock. The branching looks mostly dichotomous and starts close to the base (Fig. 5 [5]). The branches are closely placed and divergent, they subdivide at small angles and up to 6 times. All branches are about the same diameter with slightly tapered ends. Undivided terminal branches are short. The axes are brown at the base, and light yellow at the branchlets. The coenenchyme is granulose and brittle. The calyces are all around the branches, close together. They are mostly standing perpendicular to the branches, closer together and inclined upwards, at smaller angles, at the upper branchlets (Fig. 5[6]). They are tubular and elongated, up to 1.5 mm long with truncate tips. There is not enough information about the sclerites. They are straight or curved warty spindles reaching up to 1.2 mm long. They are yellow and seem asymmetric, perhaps unilateral spinose as for the genus, but from the drawings it is difficult to tell (Fig. 5[7, 8]). The colour of the colony is light brown.

Distribution.

Reported for Perú, the type locality.

Remarks.

According to Kükenthal (1924, in key) Muricea horrida differs from Muricea squarrosa in having shorter coenenchymal sclerites. Möbius (1861) description and illustration show a species that is similar to Muricea squarrosa from Perú. Muricea squarrosa is a common species in Perú. We did not find another similar species, a possible Muricea horrida , in the UPCH octocoral collection that is very comprehensive and well documented. It is indeed possible that Muricea squarrosa is a synonymous of Muricea horrida ; however, without a specimen to analyse we prefer to keep the status of Muricea horrida as dubious.