Astrogorgia

Ramvilas, Ghosh, Alderslade, Philip & Ranjeet, Kutty, 2023, The taxonomy of Indian gorgonians: an assessment of the descriptive records of gorgonians (Anthozoa: Octocorallia: Alcyonacea) recorded as occurring in the territorial waters of India, along with neighbouring regions and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, and the highlighting of perceived unethical practice, Zootaxa 5236 (1), pp. 1-124 : 43

Genus: Astrogorgia

Preliminary remarks: Species of this genus are extremely difficult to identify because they virtually only contain spindles, and attempts to recognise different taxa are heavily reliant on detailed analyses of the shape and tuberculation of the sclerites and their arrangement in the polyps and calyces being clearly presented in species descriptions. Additionally, branching tends to be irregular and may not differ greatly between species. Any descriptions should ideally be based on multiple specimens to try to cope with character differences that may only be due to intraspecific variation and species can only be separated if descriptions contain these fine details. Unfortunately, such descriptions are rare.

As mentioned above for the acanthogorgiid genus Muricella , owing to early confusion, species of that genus were thought to have a calyx and retractile polyps, and consequently most species of Muricella in the older literature are actually species of Astrogorgia in the family Plexauridae .The genus Acanthomuricea is a junior synonym of Astrogorgia . It was employed by Grasshoff (1999: 45 & 2000: 76) only for practical reasons to separate those Astrogorgia species where some of the coenenchymal spindles are very long and exceed the width of the branch on which they occur, but herein only the genus Astrogorgia is used. There are 32 nominal species of Astrogorgia and Acanthomuricea combined, and similar to what Samimi-Namin & van Ofwegen (2009) said about Muricella , we believe that without thorough revision of the genus Astrogorgia it is virtually impossible to identify species of this genus.