Heteranthidae Carlgren, 1900

Yap, Nicholas Wei Liang, Quek, Zheng Bin Randolph, Tan, Ria, Nugroho, Dharma Arif, Lee, Jen Nie, Lee Berumen, Michael, Tan, Koh Siang & Huang, Danwei, 2021, Carlgren’s hesitation allayed: redescription and systematics of Heteranthus verruculatus Klunzinger, 1877 (Cnidaria, Actiniaria), with a redefinition of Heteranthidae Carlgren, 1900, Contributions to Zoology 90 (2), pp. 155-182 : 162

Family Heteranthidae Carlgren, 1900

We revised Carlgren’s (1900: 92) diagnosis written in German. Key changes interpreted from recent studies (e.g., González-Muñoz et al., 2015; Brugler et al., 2018) and are here indicated in bold; all minor additions (i.e., of word order, updated terminology, adjectives for clarity, etc.) are in italics.

Diagnosis. Actinioidea with a well-developed pedal disc. Sphincter diffuse to circumscript, weak to strong. Number of siphonoglyphs variable. Distalmost margin with marginal projections, fosse generally shallow. Distal column with verrucae. Number of mesenteries variable, retractor muscles strong, typically diffuse circumscript. Tentacles without protuberances nor globose in appearance. Zooxanthellate. Cnidom: spirocysts, basitrichs, microbasic amastigophores,microbasic p- mastigophores.

Type genus. Heteranthus Klunzinger, 1877

Other valid genera. None.

Remarks. Based on morphological similarity, Carlgren (1943) synonymised Heteranthidae and Phymanthidae , and classed Heteranthus in the latter. We resurrect Heteranthidae for Heteranthus as molecular phylogenetic results from this and previous studies (see González-Muñoz et al., 2015; Brugler et al., 2018) do not support Carlgren’s (1943) conclusion. Following this line of evidence, we also revised the mention of higher-level classification in the original diagnosis. Among characters absent from Carlgren’s (1900) diagnosis are cnidom and arrangement of the internal musculature. We included these here as they are a necessary part of contemporary sea anemone taxonomy.