Antipathes atlantica Gray, 1857

Lima, Manuela M., Cordeiro, Ralf T. S. & Perez, Carlos D., 2019, Black Corals (Anthozoa: Antipatharia) from the Southwestern Atlantic, Zootaxa 4692 (1), pp. 1-67 : 6-8

Antipathes atlantica Gray, 1857

Fig. 1 , 2

Antipathes atlantica Gray, 1857: 291 ; Brook, 1889: 112–113, pl. XII, fig. 5; Warner, 1981: 152–155, figs. 10, 12, 15; Loiola & Castro, 2001: 5–6, figs. 5–7; Opresko, 2003: 487, fig. 3a; Opresko & Sanchez, 2005: 497–498, fig. 5; Cordeiro et al., 2012: 826–828, fig. 3.

Type and type locality. BMNH 1843.2.8.27 (probable syntype, see Opresko, 2003), West Indies , depth unknown .

Material examined. Brazil, California reef, Abrolhos , off Bahia. 18º6’6.998”S, 38º35’26.002”W; Depth unknown (date: 23/02/2000). Cols.: C. B. Castro, B. Segal and C. E. Ferreira ( MNRJ 4590 , 2 colonies and 2 fragments) .

Diagnosis. Corallum flabellate, densely branched. Colonies branched to 8th or 9th order; branching sometimes anastomosed. Smaller branchlets straight or slightly curved, usually less than 1 cm long; bilaterally arranged on both sides of the branches. Spines short, triangular, smooth, mostly between 0.04 and 0.07 mm high; arranged in six to eight longitudinal rows, with 33 to 50 spines per centimeter in each row. Polyps 0.6–1.0 mm in diameter, in a single series on branchlets, and occurring on only one side of the colony. Living colonies pale-gray to greenish (adapted from Gray, 1857; Loiola & Castro, 2001; Opresko & Sanchez, 2005).

Description of Brazilian specimens. Corallum not pinnulated, irregularly branched up to 9th order, with branching in one plane occurring bilaterally throughout the colony ( Fig. 1a ). Largest colony 18.2 cm in height and 31 cm in width; smallest colony 21.8 cm in height and 16.8 cm wide. Terminal branchlets up to 14 mm long ( Fig. 1b ). Thickness of branches of 1st, 2nd and 3rd order between 2.5 and 0.9 mm. Thickness of terminal branchlets between 0.3 and 0.1 mm. Distances between terminal branchlets between 1.5 and 5.0 mm. Branching angles between 40° and 99°. Spines triangular, pointed and smooth, organized in around six rows ( Fig. 1 c–d). Spines between 0.03 and 0.06 mm in height, rarely more than 0.07 mm. Base of spines between 0.06 and 0.1 mm in diameter, most frequently around 0.08 mm; distance between spines around 0.27 mm, with 30 to 45 spines per centimeter. Polyps small, 0.4 to 0.9 mm in transverse diameter, and occurrying in a density of seven per centimeter.

Remarks. Antipathes atlantica Gray, 1857 resembles Antipathes gracilis Gray, 1860 , and differs from the latter by having a more delicate and less bushy appearance ( Warner, 1981). In addition, A. atlantica differs from A. gracilis by having a more greenish coenenchyme in living colonies, whereas A. gracilis is more reddish to orange ( Opresko & Sanchez, 2005). The specimens examined here are 0.06–0.1 mm in spine width at the base, a range slightly different from measurements given by Loiola & Castro (2001) (0.04–0.07 mm in width) and Opresko & Sanchez (2005) (0.05–0.07 mm in width). Antipathes atlantica has been widely recorded along the Brazilian coast from Maranhão to Rio de Janeiro ( Loiola & Castro, 2001; Castro et al., 2006; Loiola, 2007; Cordeiro et al., 2012).

Distribution. Caribbean ( Brook, 1889; Warner, 1981; Opresko & Sanchez, 2005; Opresko, 2009) and Southwestern Atlantic, Brazil, from Maranhão to Pernambuco ( Cordeiro et al., 2012), and from Bahia to Rio de Janeiro ( Loiola & Castro, 2001; Castro et al., 2006; Loiola, 2007); from 20 m ( Opresko, 2009) to 300 m depths ( Castro et al., 2006) ( Fig. 2 ).

Figures

FIGURE 1. MNRJ 4590: Antipathes atlantica Gray, 1857.A—Corallum morphology; b—branches; c—Organization of spines; d—Spines magnified.

FIGURE 2. Geographical distribution of Antipathes atlantica Gray, 1857. Yellow circles: records extracted from the literature (Brook, 1889; Warner, 1981; Loiola & Castro, 2001; Opresko & Sanchez, 2005; Castro et al., 2006; Opresko, 2009; Cordeiro et al., 2012) and based on the Ocean Biogeographic Information System (OBIS). Red circle: record made in the present work.