Acanthogorgia spinosa Hiles, 1899

Acanthogorgia spinosa Hiles, 1899: 198, pl. 22f, fig. 3–6 (New Britain, SE Guinea)

Opinion: There is no evidence that this species occurs in the region.

Justification:

These Indian records seem to be either invalid or unconfirmable: Thomson & Simpson 1909: 192–194 (Andamans; Coromandel coast; Gopalpur; Kanyakumari; Malabar coast); Kumar et al. 2014a: 52, pl. 23, fig. A–D (Havelock, Munak Gate); Fernando et al. 2017: 55, pl. 21, fig. A–E (Havelock, Munak Gate).

Literature analysis: This species was erected by Hiles for material collected off New Britain. The account included drawings of a few sclerites that could have come from a number of different species of the genus, and the holotype has never been redescribed so the exact details of the sclerites are unknown and the species is not recognisable.

In Thomson & Simpson’s (1909) account of Acanthogorgia muricata Verrill, 1883, the authors claimed that Acanthogorgia spinosa was a synonym, but that A. muricata, which is also unrecognisable, only occurs in the West Indies. The accounts given by Kumar et al. (2014a) and Fernando et al. (2017) are identical, but the closeup image of the polyps clearly shows their material has polyps that have no crown spines and are very similar to those illustrated in their account of A. breviflora. These traits indicate the material would probably be a species of Muricella or perhaps Anthogorgia, but the illustrated sclerites look more like those found in Acanthogorgia, in some species of which the crown spines are absent or very reduced, for example: Acanthogorgia ildibaha, A. isoxya and A. augusta (all Grasshoff, 1999), and also see Fabricius & Alderslade (2001:184), but the polyps of the Indian material look quite different and its identity is uncertain. Regardless, Hiles figured a polyp in her original description and it had a distinct crown with many long projecting spines, and therefore quite different to the Indian specimens. Kumar et al. (2015) just lists the species and provides an illustration of the specimens in Kumar et al. (2014a) and Fernando et al. (2017).