Caryophyllia (Caryophyllia) cinticulata (Alcock, 1898)

Filander, Zoleka N., Kitahara, Marcelo V., Cairns, Stephen D., Sink, Kerry J. & Lombard, Amanda T., 2021, Azooxanthellate Scleractinia (Cnidaria, Anthozoa) from South Africa, ZooKeys 1066, pp. 1-198 : 1

Caryophyllia (Caryophyllia) cinticulata (Alcock, 1898)

Thecocyathus cinticulatus Alcock, 1898: 17-18, pl. 2, figs 5, 5A.

Trochocyathus cinticulatus . - Gardiner 1904: 99, 103-104, pl. 2, fig. 2. - Cairns et al. 1999: 24.

Caryophyllia cinticulata . - Kitahara et al. 2010a: 98, 113, figs 17-21.

Caryophyllia (Caryophyllia) cinticulata . - Kitahara and Cairns 2021: 465-466, 468, figs 252, 253A-F.

Type locality.

Off the Maldives (HMS ‘Investigator’); 84 m ( Alcock 1898; Kitahara et al. 2010).

Type material.

The holotype is purportedly deposited at the IM (Kitahara et al. 2010).

Material examined.

None.

Distribution.

Regional: Eastern margin of South Africa, off East London; 59 m ( Gardiner 1904). Elsewhere: Maldives ( Alcock 1898); and New Caledonia (Kitahara et al. 2010; Kitahara and Cairns 2021); 282-384 m.

Remarks.

Caryophyllia cinticulata representatives from New Caledonia are well described by Kitahara et al. (2010), in which these authors mention that it displays circumferential transverse ridges on the theca, and differs from its congeners by having decameral symmetry, adults attaining > 10 mm in GCD, S3 smaller than S2, and extremely sinuous S1 and S2 axial margins. No specimens of this species were found in the material examined and therefore the entry is based on Gardiner’s (1904) record, who reported the species off East London.