Leptoclinides seminudus Kott, 2001

Kott, Patricia, 2005, New and little-known species of Didemnidae (Ascidiacea, Tunicata) from Australia (Part 3), Journal of Natural History 39 (26), pp. 2409-2479 : 2426-2427

Leptoclinides seminudus Kott, 2001

( Figure 18F )

Leptoclinides seminudus Kott 2001, p 82 ; 2004a, p 736.

Distribution

Previously recorded (see Kott 2001, 2004a): southern Australia (Gulf St Vincent, Western Port, Tasmania, Bass Strait); New South Wales (Coffs Harbour). New records: South Australia (Kangaroo I., SAM E3264).

Description

In preservative, the surface of the tough, newly recorded colony has a mosaic of grey scalelike elevations separated by brownish grey depressions. Generally, the test is cartilaginous and translucent rather than opaque and brittle. Black pigment is mixed with spicules in the superficial bladder cell layer over the depressions and is crowded into randomly distributed patches on the remainder of the surface. Spicules are mixed with the bladder cells in the superficial layer of test and are present around the zooids, but are sparse in the basal half of the colony. They are stellate, to 0.068 mm diameter with 9–11 rays with conical or chiselshaped tips in optical transverse section. Zooids are along each side of the deep primary common cloacal cavities that surround the pillars of solid test beneath the surface elevations. In life, the test over the common cloacal canals is blue, forming a blue network around the white zooid-free surface elevations of the surface.

Remarks

The present species is distinguished from the tropical L. rigidus by the absence of a posterior abdominal extension of the common cloacal cavity and the larvae which are reported to have a trunk only 0.04 mm long.

Figures

Figure 18. In situ images of: (A) Leptoclinides decoratus (SAM E3257); (B) Leptoclinides frustus (SAM E3255, holotype); (C) Leptoclinides imperfectus (SAM E3243); (D) Leptoclinides lissus QM G308709); (E) Leptoclinides rigidus (QM G308708); (F) Leptoclinides seminudus (SAM E3264); (G) Polysyncraton cuculliferum (QM G308715); (H) Polysyncraton galaxum (SAM E3261).