Kirchenpaueria curvata Jaderholm 1904

Kirchenpaueria curvata (Jäderholm, 1904)

Plumularia curvata Jäderholm, 1904: 13. – Jäderholm, 1905: 36, pl. 14 figs 9–10. – Stepanjants, 1979: 118, pl. 20, fig. 9.

Plumularia magellanica Hartlaub, 1905: 684, figs N5– O 5. – Ritchie, 1909: 82, pl. 3 figs 1, 1A. – Fraser, 1938: 65, pl. 15 fig. 75.

Plumularia sp. Hartlaub, 1905: 682, fig. L5.

Kirchenpaueria magellanica – Galea, 2007: 79, fig. 19A–C.

Type locality. Port Louis, Falkland Islands.

Remarks. Although not in the present collection, specimens of Kirchenpaueria magellanica (Hartlaub, 1905) from southern Chile were recently described by Galea (2007). However, the lack of appropriate literature at the time of his publication prevented him to give an accurate synonymy for this species. Additionally, some useful remarks are given below.

Jäderholm (1905) stated that Plumularia magellanica Hartlaub,1905 is actually a junior synonym of Plumularia curvata Jäderholm, 1904, which clearly belongs to the genus Kirchenpaueria Jickeli, 1883. The descriptions and illustrations given by both authors leave no doubt that their species are conspecific.

The stems of K. curvata are generally small and range from 4 mm (Fraser 1938) to 30 mm (Jäderholm 1904, Stepanjants 1979). Hartlaub (1905) reported several basal, short internodes, without apophyses and cladia. Above the very basal part, the apophyses supporting hydrocladia arise either from middle region of internodes (in the lower parts of stem), or from their distal ends (in the upper parts of stems) (Hartlaub 1905). In Ritchie’s (1909) material, the cladia are coplanar, compared to Hartlaub’s (1905) specimens, in which they are more or less directed towards one side of the colony. The cladia are generally homomerously divided into a succession of hydrothecate segments (Hartlaub 1905, Fraser 1938), but ahydrothecate segments may occasionally be present; the latter are either short (Jäderholm 1904) or rather long (Galea 2007). The number of hydrothecae per cladium varies between generally 1 (Fraser 1938, Galea 2007) to 4 (Hartlaub 1905, Jäderholm 1904) or even 5 (Ritchie 1909). Although most authors reported nematothecae on the cladial segments below the bases of hydrothecae (Jäderholm 1904, Hartlaub 1905, Ritchie 1909, Stepanjants 1979, Galea 2007), others (Fraser 1938) did not find them.

The gonotheca of this species was first described by Fraser (1938). According to him, it arises either from the axils of the stem internodes, or directly and laterally from the internodes. They are pear-shaped to elongate, “nearly twice as long as the hydrocladial internode”; the perisarc is smooth. The gonotheca figured by Stepanjants (1979) most probably do not belong to the present species (S. Stepanjants, pers. comm.). Additionally, no material corresponding to K. curvata is stored in the collections of the Zoological Institute of Moscow, Russia (Stepanjants 1979), and is therefore unavailable for further inspection.

World distribution. Falkland Islands (Jäderholm 1904, Ritchie 1909), Galapagos (Fraser 1938).

Records from Chile. Calbuco, Ushuaia and Picton Island (Hartlaub 1905), Castillo Channel (Galea 2007).