Cladocoryne floccosa Rotch, 1871

Calder, Dale R., 2013, Some shallow-water hydroids (Cnidaria: Hydrozoa) from the central east coast of Florida, USA, Zootaxa 3648 (1), pp. 1-72 : 7-8

Cladocoryne floccosa Rotch, 1871

Fig. 1b

Cladocoryne floccosa Rotch, 1871: 228 .

Type locality. UK: Guernsey, Herm , on stones at low tide ( Rotch 1871) .

Voucher material. Fort Pierce Inlet , north jetty, north side, 27°28’24.2”N, 80°17’20.3”W, 0.1 m, 15.ii.1991, 20° C, collected manually, one stolonal colony, up to 5 mm high, without gonophores, coll. D.R. Calder, ROMIZ B1114 .

Remarks. The earliest account of this species, as Hydra corynaria , was in an obscure paper by Bosc (1797). The French naturalist discovered the species on pelagic Sargassum during a crossing from Bordeaux, France, to Charleston, South Carolina, but the name he applied to it was never adopted. The species has become widely known instead as Cladocoryne floccosa Rotch, 1871 . In the interests of nomenclatural stability, the name C. floccosa was assigned precedence over its virtually unused senior subjective synonym H. corynaria by Calder et al. (2003). Under Article 23.9 of the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN) ( International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature 1999), the former becomes a nomen protectum and the latter a nomen oblitum.

Cladocoryne floccosa has been reported several times from the Caribbean region (e.g., Fraser 1947, as C. pelagica Allman, 1876 ; Wedler & Larson 1986; Galea 2008). Fraser’s (1944) record of it from 1544 fathoms (2824 m) at a location south of Nantucket, Massachusetts (as C. pelagica ) is anomalous and the species must certainly have been growing on floating (or sunken) Sargassum , as he speculated. According to Schuchert (2006, 2012b), its bathymetric range is 0– 50 m.

Reported distribution. Atlantic coast of Florida. First record.

Western Atlantic. Vineyard Sound, Massachusetts, on floating Sargassum ( Hargitt 1909, as C. floccosa var. sargassensis ) to Brazil ( Migotto 1996), and including the Caribbean Sea ( Galea 2008).

Elsewhere. Thought to be circumglobal in tropical and warm-temperate waters ( Schuchert 2006, 2012b).

Figures

FIGURE 1. a, Pennaria disticha: part of hydrocaulus with annulated pedicel and juvenile hydranth, ROMIZ B1118; scale equals 0.5 mm. b, Cladocoryne floccosa: stem and hydranth, ROMIZ B1114, scale equals 0.5 mm. c, Velella velella: juvenile, left-sailing form, ROMIZ B1113, scale equals 1 mm. d, Zanclea alba: pedicel and hydranth, ROMIZ B3961, scale equals 0.25 mm. e, Solanderia gracilis: tip of branch with three hydranths, ROMIZ B3962, scale equals 0.25 mm. f, Turritopsis fascicularis: pedicel and hydranth with medusa bud, ROMIZ B1106, scale equals 0.25 mm. g, Parawrightia robusta: part of pedicel and hydranth, ROMIZ B1110, scale equals 0.25 mm. h, Bimeria vestita: pedicel and hydranth, ROMIZ B1116, scale equals 0.25 mm. i, Eudendrium carneum: part of hydrocaulus with pedicel and hydranth, ROMIZ B3960, scale equals 0.25 mm.