Bimeria vestita Wright, 1859

Gil, Marta, Ramil, Fran & Agís, José Ansín, 2020, Hydroids (Cnidaria, Hydrozoa) from Mauritanian Coral Mounds, Zootaxa 4878 (3), pp. 412-466 : 419

Bimeria vestita Wright, 1859

Bimeria vestita: Vervoort, 1992: 14–15 ; Calder, 1988: 21–23, figs 17–18; Marques et al., 2000: 322–324, figs. 1–3; Ramil & Vervoort, 2006: 196–197, fig. 5 no. 2; Schuchert, 2007: 247–250, fig. 20; Schuchert, 2012: 216–217, fig. 205.

Material examined. MAURIT-1011, stn MUDR20 : 16º08´11”N, 16º56´08”W, 405 m, 7-XII-2010: one colony, attached to Plumularia filicula , no gonophores .

MSM 16/3, stn GeoB 14908–1, ROV, 17°40.213’– 17°40.191’N, 16°40.829’– 16°40.289’W, 463–574 m, 16- XI-2010: eight colonies without gonophores, two colonies attached to Lophelia pertusa , three colonies attached to Sertularella gayi , one colony attached to Acesta excavata (Fabricius, 1779) , one colony attached to cirripedia.

Biology. Bimeria vestita usually grows on other hydroids and on pebbles, algae, sponges, bryozoans, tubes of sabellids and gastropod shells ( Genzano & Zamponi 1999; Schuchert 2012). Colonies with gonophores were found in the early summer in the Northeast Atlantic ( Schuchert 2012), from October to February in the Mediterranean ( Boero & Fresi 1986), August to September in the Northwest Atlantic ( Calder 1988) and spring to autumn in the Southwest Atlantic ( Genzano & Zamponi 1999).

The colonies studied by us were found growing on L. pertusa , A. excavata , cirripeds and the hydroids P. filicula and S. gayi .

Distribution. This species has a circumglobal distribution without any records in the Arctic and Antarctic Oceans ( Vervoort 2006). In West Africa, it was collected from Morocco ( Patriti 1970), West Sahara ( Leloup 1937), Canary Islands ( Vervoort 2006), Mauritania ( Gil & Ramil 2017a), Senegal ( Picard 1951), Cape Verde Archipelago ( Vervoort 2006) and Ghana ( Buchanan 1957). Its bathymetric distribution ranges from 0 ( Schuchert 2012) to 405 m ( Gil & Ramil 2017a).

Our material was collected from depths of 405 to 574 m, representing the deepest record for this species.

Remarks. The colonies showed a firm perisarc covering the stem and branches of the colonies that extends as a soft pseudohydrotheca over the hydranths, including the bases of the tentacles; all these characteristics are distinctive of B. vestita ( Calder 1988; Schuchert 2012).