Lytocarpia myriophyllum ( Linnaeus, 1758 )

Gil, Marta, Ramil, Fran & Agís, José Ansín, 2020, Hydroids (Cnidaria, Hydrozoa) from Mauritanian Coral Mounds, Zootaxa 4878 (3), pp. 412-466 : 432

Lytocarpia myriophyllum ( Linnaeus, 1758)

Lytocarpia myriophyllum: Ramil & Vervoort, 1992: 137–143 , figs. 35b–d, 36a–j; Ramil et al., 1998:19–23, figs. 9–12; Ansín Agís et al., 2001: 88–99, figs. 40–45; Di Camillo et al., 2013: 778–784, figs. 2–5.

Material examined. MAURIT-0911, stn MUDR02 , 16º08´50”N, 16º57´01”W, 462 m, 5-XII-2009: one colony, no corbulae .

Biology. Lytocarpia myriophyllum shows hydrorhizal adaptations to anchor the colony in soft bottoms ( Ansín Agís et al. 2001). Because of its capacity to create wide forests and stabilize sediments, it was defined as a habitat former and ecosystem engineer ( Di Camillo et al. 2013). Fertile material has been reported from March to November ( Ansín Agís et al. 2001; Di Camillo et al. 2013).

Our colony was collected on the cold-water coral mounds barrier but detached from substratum.

Distribution. The geographical distribution of L. myriophyllum was reviewed by Ansín Agís et al. (2001), who excluded the records of this species from the Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its current distribution stretches from the Arctic Seas to the USA in the West Atlantic and to the Gulf of Guinea in the East Atlantic and throughout the whole Mediterranean Sea to the coast of Israel. In West Africa, it was collected from Morocco [ Billard 1906b; Patriti 1970, both as Thecocarpus myriophyllum ( Linnaeus, 1758) ; Ansín Agís et al. 2001], West Sahara ( Vervoort 2006), Canary Islands ( Bedot 1921b, as T. myriophyllum ; Ansín Agís et al. 2001), Mauritania ( Ansín Agís et al. 2001; Vervoort 2006; Gil & Ramil 2017a), Cape Verde Islands ( Billard 1906b, as T. myriophyllum ; Ansín Agís et al. 2001), Senegal (Vervoort 1959, as T. myriophyllum ), Guinea-Bissau ( Gili et al. 1989, as T. myriophyllum ), Sierra Leone (Vervoort 1959, as T. myriophyllum ), Liberia ( Broch 1914, as T. myriophyllum ), Ghana ( Buchanan 1957, as T. myriophyllum ) and the Gulf of Guinea ( Redier 1965, as Aglaophenia myriophyllum ). Its bathymetric range extends from 5 to 1800 m ( Ramil & Vervoort 1992; Ansín Agís et al. 2001).

The colony examined by us was collected at a depth of 462 m, close to the Senegalese border.

Remarks. This material falls within the variations described by Ramil & Vervoort (1992) and Ansín Agís et al. (2001) for Lytocarpia myriophyllum .