Corallium

Tu, Tzu-Hsuan, Altuna, Álvaro & Jeng, Ming-Shiou, 2015, Coralliidae (Anthozoa: Octocorallia) from the INDEMARES 2010 expedition to north and northwest Spain (northeast Atlantic), with delimitation of a new species using both morphological and molecular approaches, Zootaxa 3926 (3), pp. 301-328 : 322

Corallium sp.

Material examined. INDEMARES 2010: Galicia Bank (northwestern Spain), 13.08.2010, Stn. DR08 , 42º55.941’N – 012º05.149’W, 1196 m, one dead colony 172.0 mm in height and 9.3 mm in basal diameter, completely covered by a zoanthid, with several galleries of a commensal worm. No worm present.

Remarks. The colony was lacking soft tissues and holdfast, and is fully overgrown by a zoanthid (see Britayev et al. 2014, fig. 10). The tissues of the zoanthid are incrusted with numerous particles including sclerites in the form of double clubs. These sclerites are probably from the Corallium colony; however, it is not possible to identify the specimen from the few double clubs present on the zoanthid. The presence of a sinuous axis with a tendency towards dichotomous branching and galleries created by a commensal polychaete suggests that this specimen is either C. niobe or C. bayeri .

Zoanthids associated with Corallium and belonging to a new genus were described for the first time from Japan by Reimer et al. (2008). They are also mentioned by Nonaka et al. (2012), but are still unknown from Atlantic waters (F. Sinniger, com. pers. 15.07.2013). In contrast to the Pacific zoanthids associated with Corallium , which are solitary, the specimen living on the colony of Corallium sp. from the Galicia Bank is colonial. The kind of interaction between both species is subject to further research.