Tubulariidae Fleming, 1828

Calder, Dale R., 2010, Some anthoathecate hydroids and limnopolyps (Cnidaria, Hydrozoa) from the Hawaiian archipelago 2590, Zootaxa 2590 (1), pp. 1-91 : 45-46

Family Tubulariidae Fleming, 1828

Tubulariadae Fleming, 1828: 552 [emended to Tubulariidae by Hincks (1868)].

Diagnosis. Capitate hydroids solitary or colonial. Hydrocaulus erect, branched or unbranched, usually long and cylindrical, infrequently short and thick, arising from creeping hydrorhiza, basal disc, or tuber- to rhizoidlike processes proximally, distal end with bulbous to tapered neck region supporting a hydranth; perisarc cylindrical, often thick and rigid over hydrocaulus, thin over neck region, extending to hydranth base; annulations present or absent. Hydranths flask-shaped to barrel-shaped, with thickened parenchymatic cushion basally, bearing tentacles at aboral and oral ends. Aboral tentacles long, tapering, in one whorl; oral tentacles shorter, in one or several close whorls, usually filiform but sometimes pseudofiliform, moniliform, or capitate.

Gonophores fixed sporosacs or free medusae, borne on blastostyles arising in a whorl from hydranth just above aboral tentacles; planula stage absent. Fixed sporosacs, when present, often with actinula larvae. Medusae, if present, bell-shaped, symmetrical with straight margin or bilaterally symmetrical with more or less oblique margin, exumbrella with or without 5–8 meridional tracks of nematocysts; manubrium usually quite small; mouth simple, circular; radial canals four; marginal tentacles 1–4, perradial; ocelli absent; gonads surrounding manubrium; medusae sometimes producing actinulae.

Remarks. Authorship of the family-group name Tubulariidae has been credited to Fleming (1928). Goldfuss (1818) and Fischer von Waldheim (1823) used the name “Tubulariae” earlier ( Calder 1988), but in what is interpreted as a descriptive term for a group of genera excluding Tubularia Linnaeus, 1758 , and as such neither is available (ICZN Art. 11.7). Goldfuss included the genera Clava Gmelin, 1791 , Coryne Gaertner, 1774 , Calamella Oken, 1815 , and Sertularia Linnaeus, 1758 in Tubulariae, but he assigned the genus name Tubularia to a different family (“Polypi”) within a different order (“Infusoria”). Likewise, Fischer von Waldheim used the name “Tubulariae” for a group that did not include Tubularia .

The diagnosis of Tubulariidae given above has been adapted from Calder (1988), who reviewed the nomenclatural history of the family, from Petersen (1990), who revised diagnoses of included genera, from Bouillon et al. (2006), who provided a list of included species, and from Schuchert (2010), who recently revised the European species. Tubulariidae presently comprises 10 genera and about 75 species, and is thought to be monophyletic ( Daly et al. 2007; Schuchert 2009). Of the included genera, only Ectopleura L. Agassiz, 1862 has been reported from Hawaii.

Marques & Migotto (2001) recognized two subfamilies in Tubulariidae , namely Tubulariinae Fleming, 1828 (including Tubularia , Hybocodon L. Agassiz, 1862 , Zyzzyzus Stechow, 1921a , Ralpharia Watson, 1980 , and Bouillonia Petersen, 1990 ) and the newly established Ectopleurinae Marques & Migotto, 2001 (including Ectopleura L. Agassiz, 1862 and Pinauay Marques & Migotto, 2001 ). A new genus established recently, Lobataria Watson, 2008 , is referable to Tubulariinae.