Sertularella patagonica

Sertularella patagonica (d’ Orbigny, 1846)

Fig. 4E; Table 10

Sertularia patagonica d’ Orbigny, 1846: 25–26, pl. 11 figs 3–5.

Sertularella striata – Millard 1975: 304–305, fig. 97e–f. — Gili et al. 1989: 104–105, fig. 29a. Sertularella patagonica – Galea et al. 2017: 294–295, fig. 15a–e.

Material examined

SOUTH ATLANTIC OCEAN • 11 colonies, up to 24 mm high (1 growing on antipatharian), all devoid of gonothecae; Vema Seamount, stn PT4; 31°39′43″–31°38′10″ S, 8°22′37″–8°23′42″ E; 50–108 m depth; 31 Jan. 2015; SEAFO-2015 leg.; SEAFO-2015-40003, SEAFO-2015-40033, SEAFO-2015-40077, SEAFO-2015-40093, SEAFO-2015-40107, SEAFO-2015-40183, SEAFO-2015-40213, SEAFO-2015- 40474, LZM-UV slide R. 586 • 4 colonies, without gonothecae (1 growing on algae and 1 on a bryozoan); Vema Seamount, stn BT5; 31°37′16″–31°36′58″ S, 8°22′37″–8°23′06″ E; 71–94 m depth; 31 Jan. 2015; SEAFO-2015 leg.; SEAFO-2015-40387, SEAFO-2015-40467, SEAFO-2015-40723, SEAFO-2015-40768 • 3 colonies, without gonothecae; Vema Seamount, stn Dive 4; 91–95 m depth; 1 Feb. 2015; SEAFO-2015 leg.; SEAFO-2015-40131, SEAFO-2015-40917, SEAFO-2015-40977.

Remarks

Our material coincides in both morphology and measurements with those given for S. patagonica by Galea et al. (2017), who synonymized Sertularella striata Stechow, 1923 with S. patagonica after a literature review. It also fits well with the colonies described by Gili et al. (1989, as S. striata) from the Namibian coast, but this record was considered as doubtful by Galea et al. (2017) due to the hydrothecal measurements being larger than those reported for S. patagonica in the literature. However, there are some contradictions between the measurements given by Gili et al. (1989) in the text and those that we have obtained from their figure 29a; indeed, the latter fall within the size range given for S. patagonica, and Namibian colonies prove identical with those collected at Vema Seamount. Consequently, we consider our Namibian material as conspecific with S. patagonica.

Distribution

In the Atlantic, Sertularella patagonica was recorded from the Argentinean coast (Galea et al. 2017) and off Namibia (Gili et al. 1989, as S. striata), and from the east coast of South Africa, Mozambique (Millard 1975) and India (Nagale & Apte 2014, as S. striata) in the Indian Ocean. Its bathymetric distribution ranges from the intertidal (Nagale & Apte 2014, as S. striata) to 429 m (Gili et al. 1989, as S. striata).