Bimeria tunicata Fraser, 1943a

Calder, Dale R. & Choong, Henry H. C., 2018, Names of hydroids (Cnidaria, Hydrozoa) established by Charles McLean Fraser (1872 - 1946), excluding those from Allan Hancock Expeditions, Zootaxa 4487 (1), pp. 1-83 : 11-12

Bimeria tunicata Fraser, 1943a

? Calyptospadix cerulea Clarke, 1882: 136 , pl. 7, figs. 1–9.

Bimeria franciscana Torrey, 1902: 28 , pl. 1, fig. 4.

Bimeria tunicata Fraser, 1943a: 76 , pl. 15, figs. 2a, b.

Garveia franciscana .— Vervoort, 1964: 127, figs. 1–4.

Syntypes. MCZ-IZ 9006: USA, Louisiana, Louisiana coast, 1918, winter, several colonies, up to 13 cm high, in fair to fairly good condition, with male and female gonophores, coll. Percy Viosca, labelled “ type ”; formalin, about to be transferred to ethanol.

Lectotype, by present designation. MCZ-IZ 9006: USA, Louisiana, Louisiana coast, 1918, winter, hydrocaulus of one colony, 7 cm high, in fairly good condition, with female gonophores, coll. Percy Viosca, labelled “ type ”; ethanol.

Paralectotypes. MCZ-IZ 146028: USA, Louisiana, Louisiana coast, 1918, winter, several colonies, up to 13 cm high, in fair to fairly good condition, some colonies with male and others with female gonophores, coll. Percy Viosca, labelled “ type ”; formalin, about to be transferred to ethanol.

Type locality. USA, Louisiana coast ( Fraser 1943a).

Current status. Invalid.

Remarks. In establishing Bimeria tunicata , no name-bearing type was fixed by Fraser (1943a). Several colonies examined by him in preparing the original description, labelled “ Type ” and constituting syntypes, are at the MCZ (MCZ-IZ 9006). A hydrocaulus having the best-preserved female gonophores was selected from among the syntypes as the lectotype (MCZ-IZ 9006). All others are paralectotypes (MCZ-IZ 146028).

Bimeria tunicata was assigned to the synonymy of Bimeria franciscana Torrey, 1902 by Deevey (1950), following a study of abundant material from both Louisiana, type locality of the former, and San Francisco Bay, type locality of the latter. Vervoort (1964) referred the species to Garveia Wright, 1859 , as G. franciscana . More likely this species will prove to be identical with, or at least congeneric with, the seldom-reported estuarine bougainvilliid Calyptospadix cerulea Clarke, 1882 (type locality: Fort Wool in Hampton Roads, Virginia, USA).

Labels with the syntypes credit the collector of this species as “ Percy Viaseo ”, believed by us to be the noted Louisiana naturalist Percy Viosca, Jr. (see Penn 1962).