Truncatoflabellum paripavoninum (Alcock, 1894)

Cairns, Stephen D., 2016, A key to the genera and species of the transversely-dividing Flabellidae (Anthozoa, Scleractinia, Flabellidae), with a guide to the literature, and the description of two new species, ZooKeys 562, pp. 1-48 : 19

Taxon classification Animalia Scleractinia Flabellidae

Truncatoflabellum paripavoninum (Alcock, 1894) Fig. 9A

Flabellum pari-pavoninum Alcock, 1894: 187.

Flabellum paripavoninum : Alcock 1898: 21, pl. 2, fig. 3 a–b.

Truncatoflabellum paripavoninum : Cairns 1989b: 72-73, Table 6, pls. 37 j–l, 38a (synonymy); 1995: 113-114, pl. 37 d–e.- Cairns and Zibrowius 1997: 169, fig. 22f.- Cairns 1998: 399; 2004: 309.

Distribution.

Philippines, Indonesia, New Caledonia, Kermadec Islands, Western Australia, Laccadive Sea, 394-1450 m.

Remarks.

Truncatoflabellum paripavoninum belongs to a group of six species that lack thecal edge spines and crests (see Key: couplets 28-32). Except for Truncatoflabellum inconstans , known only from limited material from 23-130 m, these species have the greatest depth ranges of all the species in the genus often occurring deeper than 1000 m, suggesting that spines are less necessary for life at great depths. This begs the question of the function of the thecal edge spines. Even the relatively shallow species that have edge spines live at hundreds of meters of depth, far below the level at which surface turbulence would affect them. Thus the function of the thecal spines still remains unresolved.