A new species of Tethocyathus (Cnidaria: Anthozoa: Scleractinia: Caryophylliidae), a trans-isthmian azooxanthellate species

PROCEEDINGS OF THE BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON 113(3):590-595. 2000. A new species of Tethocyathus (Cnidaria: Anthozoa: Scleractinia: Caryophylliidae), a trans-isthmian azooxanthellate species Patricia Lattig and Stephen D. Cairns (PL) Institute de Investigaciones Marinas y Costeras, A. A. 10-16, Cerro Punta de Betin, Santa Marta, Colombia; (SDC) Department of Invertebrate Zoology, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. 20560-0163, U.S.A. Abstract. — A new species of Tethocyathus is described, T. prahli, charac-terized by having a tympaniform corallum shape and no fossa. Specimens were found living at 310 m in the Colombian Caribbean, 303-333 m at Cocos Island (Pacific Costa Rica), and from the early Pleistocene of Pacific Panama, sug-gesting a relictual distribution of a previously more widespread species. Teth-ocyathus prahli is probably unique among the Scleractinia in having a non-cosmopolitan trans-isthmian distribution. The diagnosis of the genus Tethocy-athus is emended to conform more closely to that of the type species. The discovery of an undescribed species of Tethocyathus from the Colombian Carib-bean and the same species from the Pleis-tocene of Pacific Panama raised interesting zoogeographic questions. In the course of writing the paper, several more specimens were discovered from the Recent of Cocos Island, reinforcing our zoogeographic inter-pretation, i.e., that living T. prahli represent a trans-isthmian relictual distribution of a moderately shallow-water azooxanthellate species that was more widely and continu-ously distributed in the early Pliocene of both ocean realms. It is one of the very few scleractinian corals to have an trans-isth-mian distribution in relatively shallow wa-ter. Abbreviations BID: Banco Interamericano de Desarrollo. COLCIENCIAS: Instituto Colombian© para el desarrollo de la Ciencia y la Tec-nologia, Francisco Jose de Caldas. H:D: Ratio of height to maximum cali-cular diameter of a corallum. INVEMAR: Instituto de Investigaciones Marinas y Costeras "Jose Benito Vives de Andreis" (Santa Marta, Colombia). SEM: Scanning Electron Microscope. STRI: Smithsonian Tropical Research In-stitute, Panama. USNM: United States National Museum, Washington, DC (now the National Muse-um of Natural History). Sx, C^, P^: cycle of septa, costae or pali, respectively, designated by numerical sub-script. S^ > Syi in the context of a septal for-mula, septa of cycle x are wider than those of cycle y. Methods Colombian specimens were collected us-ing a botton trawl of 9 by 1 m in aperture and 16 m length during INVEMAR Macro Fauna cruise 2 (Dec 1998). Pleistocene cor-als were collected as part of the Panama Paleontology Project. The Cocos Island specimens were collected on the Johnson-Sea-Link Galapagos/Cocos Islands Expedi-tion of 1986, sponsored by the Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute. The holotype is deposited at INVEMAR,

Identifiers

Export

A new species of Tethocyathus (Cnidaria: Anthozoa: Scleractinia: Caryophylliidae), a trans-isthmian azooxanthellate species

Viewer

Localities

Specimens