Sertularella areyi Nutting 1904

Sertularella areyi Nutting, 1904

Fig. 7i

Sertularella areyi Nutting, 1904: 83, pl. 17 fig. 6.— Coles et al., 2002a: 318; 2002b: 177.— Carlton & Eldredge, 2009: 38.— Calder, 2020: 216, fig. 5a.

Type locality. Cuba: near Havana, 100–200 fm (183–366 m) (Nutting 1904).

Material examined. Nihoa, on algae, 06.ix.2002, 2 colonies or colony fragments, to 5 mm high, without gonothecae, coll. A. Faucci, ROMIZ B5478.

Remarks. Discovery of Sertularella areyi Nutting, 1904 from inshore waters of Hawaii in the central Pacific (Calder 2019, 2020), and from diving depths at Nihoa in this study, is surprising given the type locality of the species. The hydroid was originally described by Nutting (1904) from outer neritic and upper bathyal waters (100–200 ftm = 182–364 m) off Cuba, in the western North Atlantic. Records of it from the Atlantic to date have mainly been at intermediate depths, although the species appears to be quite eurybathic. Sertularella areyi has been most widely reported in the western Pacific, with records from Japan (Yamada 1959; Hirohito 1995), Korea (Rho & Chang 1974), the Philippines (Vervoort 1993), New Caledonia (Vervoort 1993), the Loyalty Islands (Vervoort 1993), New Zealand (Vervoort & Watson 2003), and China (Xu et al. 2014b; Song 2019). When subjective synonyms of the species are included, its range also includes Australia (Sertularella annulaventricosa Mulder & Trebilcock, 1915, from Queenscliff, Victoria), Tasmania (Sertularia undulata Bale, 1915, from South Cape), Indonesia (Sertularella tricincta Billard, 1939, from the Kei Islands), and South Africa (Sertularella capensis delicata Millard, 1964, from Natal). Molecular comparisons of populations across its reported distribution will therefore be enlightening. In the western Atlantic Ocean, its putative range extends from Plantagenet Bank near Bermuda (Calder 2000) and from shelf waters off South Carolina (Wenner et al. 1984) in the north to Brazil (Oliveira et al. 2016) in the south.

Type material of S. areyi was collected off Cuba during the Bahama Expedition of 1893, led by Charles Cleveland Nutting (1858–1927) of the State University of Iowa (now the University of Iowa). Nutting (1904) named the species in honour of Melvin Franklin Arey (1844–1931), Professor of Natural Sciences at the Iowa State Normal School (now the University of Northern Iowa), a participant in the expedition, and a veteran of the American Civil War (https://scua.library.uni.edu/university-archives/historical-information-and-essays/lincoln-civil-war-and-uni). An engaging narrative of the Bahama Expedition appears in Nutting (1895).

Detailed accounts of S. areyi from the western Pacific Ocean appear in the major works of Vervoort (1993) and Vervoort & Watson (2003).

Reported Distribution. Hawaiian archipelago. Oahu: Kaneohe Bay, Moku Manu Island (Coles et al. 2002a; Calder 2020); Waikiki, Kapua Channel (Coles et al. 2002b).

Elsewhere. Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian oceans, mostly at lower latitudes (Vervoort & Watson 2003).