Staurotheca stolonifera (Hartlaub, 1904)

Cantero, A. L. Peña & Vervoort, W., 2003, Species of Staurotheca Allman, 1888 (Cnidaria: Hydrozoa: Sertulariidae) from US Antarctic expeditions, with the description of three new species, Journal of Natural History 37 (22), pp. 2653-2722 : 2705

Staurotheca stolonifera (Hartlaub, 1904)

Sertularia stolonifera Hartlaub, 1904: 15 , pl. 3 figures 2, 3; 1905: 660; Jäderholm, 1905: 24,

pl. 9 figures 6, 7; Billard, 1906: 3; Vanhöffen, 1910: 330. Sertularella stolonifera: Vanhöffen, 1910: 330 . Staurotheca stolonifera : Stepan’yants, 1979: 100, pl. 17 figure 12; Peña Cantero et al., 1997:

336; 1999: 160. Staurotheca ? stolonifera: Peña Cantero et al., 1997: 368–370 , figure 10E–G.

Remarks. Staurotheca stolonifera is characterized by: (1) the polysiphonic stem, (2) the presence of anastomoses and mushroom-shaped diaphragm, (3) the presence of stolons originating at the hydrothecal base and growing downwards, and (4) the two to four longitudinal rows of hydrothecae (cf. table 6).

Ecology and distribution. Staurotheca stolonifera has been collected from depths between 262 (Peña Cantero et al., 1997) and 569 m (Hartlaub, 1904). It seems to be restricted to West Antarctica, having been reported from the Bellingshausen Sea (Hartlaub, 1904), off the Antarctic Peninsula (Jäderholm, 1905) and the eastern coast of the Weddell Sea (Peña Cantero et al., 1997).