Genus Calcigorgia Broch, 1935

Diagnosis

Acanthogorgiid gorgonians whose sclerites are not individually conspicuous and not regularly arranged in the polyp. Sclerites are spindles, capstans, ovals, and clubs with warty, leafy, or serrated heads.

Remarks

The diagnosis given above combines those provided by Broch (1935) and Bayer (1981), and adds the cases when clubs with leafy or serrated (dentate) heads are present. Leafy clubs were shown for Calcigorgia matua, C. herba sp. nov. and С. lukini sp. nov. Clubs with serrated heads were found in C. japonica and in some specimens of Calcigorgia from Matsumoto et al. (2019). Matsumoto et al. (2019) also gave a diagnosis of the genus, but they wrongly noted that “tentacular sclerites are scales or absent; polyp and coenenchymal sclerites in the form of stout tuberculate spindles” (Matsumoto et al. 2019: 2–3). Calcigorgia spiculifera, the type of the genus, has not only scales but also clubs and spindles in the tentacles. Its polyp body and coenenchyme with capstans and ovals (Broch 1935: 22–25, fig. 14; Table 1 of the present paper). Additionally, various sclerite types besides the scales were documented in tentacles and other parts of colonies of a range of Calcigorgia representatives, including those described in Matsumoto et al. 2019 (Table 1 of the present contribution).