Campanularia colombiana ( Wedler, 1976 )

Calder, Dale R., 2019, On a collection of hydroids (Cnidaria, Hydrozoa) from the southwest coast of Florida, USA, Zootaxa 4689 (1), pp. 1-141 : 41-42

Campanularia colombiana ( Wedler, 1976)

Figs. 10a, b

Clytia sp. A.— Joyce, 1961: 51, pl. 9, figs. 3, 4, pl. 10, fig. 1.

Clytia species Joyce.— Shier, 1965: 37, pls. 19, 20.

Clytia colombiana Wedler, 1975: 332 , 340, 352 (nomen nudum).

Clytia colombiana Wedler, 1976: 41 , figs. 1a–c, 2a, b, pl. 1, a–d.

Type locality. Colombia: Santa Marta area ( Wedler, 1976: 41, as Clytia colombiana ) .

Material examined. Sanibel Island, beach at Lighthouse Point, 26°26’57”N, 82°01’06”W, on detached Thalassia at water’s edge, 13 March 2018, 20° C, 33.5‰, one colony, 1 mm high, with gonophores, coll. D. Calder, ROMIZ B4356.—Sanibel Island, beach at Lighthouse Point, 26°27’00”N, 82°01’01”W, on detached Thalassia at water’s edge, 15 March 2018, two colonies or colony fragments, up to 3 mm high, with gonophores, coll. D. Calder, ROMIZ B4422 [initially preserved in 70% ethanol; later transferred to the same preservative].

Non-Florida material examined. SYNTYPE. Colombia: Santa Marta , Rodadero, 3-5 m, on seagrass, 24 February 1972, one colony, 2 mm high, without gonophores, coll. E. Wedler, SMF 3606 [slide] .

Remarks. This hydroid was first recognized as an undescribed species in a master’s thesis by Joyce (1961, as Clytia sp. A). His specimens, in collections from the Seahorse Key area on the Gulf coast of Florida, USA, were found on floating seagrass in April and August of 1960. Fertile colonies were present in both collections. Four years later the species was reported again, from the Cape San Blas area on the Florida Gulf coast, in a master’s thesis by Shier (1965, as Clytia species Joyce). She found it on all three species of seagrasses in the region ( Thalassia testudinum , Halodule wrightii , Syringodium filiforme ). Specimens were collected by her every month of the year, with peaks of abundance in April and October. Hydroids with gonothecae were observed every month except June. Joyce and Shier neither published accounts of the species nor proposed a specific name for it.

The hydroid was subsequently described and named by Wedler (1976), as Clytia colombiana , based on material from the Santa Marta area on the Caribbean coast of Colombia. The binomen C. colombiana had been mentioned a year earlier in an ecological work by Wedler (1975), but as a nomen nudum (see ICZN Art. 13). No name-bearing types of the species were designated in the original description by Wedler (1976). One of his specimens (SMF 3606), examined here, is currently listed as the holotype in collections at the Senckenberg Forschungsinstitut und Naturmuseum. Under the code (ICZN Art. 72), however, it merely constitutes part of the syntype series. In not having examined the entire collection of the species at Senckenberg, no lectotype is designated here.

The generic identity of this hydroid is somewhat obscure, although its assignment to Clytia Lamouroux, 1812 is certain to be incorrect. In having thickened perisarc at the base of the hydrotheca instead of a true diaphragm, a subhydrothecal spherule at the distal end of the hydrothecal pedicel instead of a typical annulation, and fixed sporosacs rather than free and well-developed medusae, it conforms instead with genera such as Campanularia Lamarck, 1816 and Orthopyxis L. Agassiz, 1862 . The latter two are morphologically close and sometimes considered identical (e.g., Millard 1975; Schuchert 2001), although molecular studies thus far uphold the distinction between them ( Cunha et al. 2015, 2017; Maronna et al. 2016). While resembling Orthopyxis in having somewhat thickened hydrothecal walls, this hydroid appears closer to Campanularia in having fixed sporosacs rather than medusoids, and stolons that do not appear to anastomose. The binomen Campanularia colombiana is adopted for the species here. Bandel & Wedler (1987) had used the combination earlier, although with the specific name misspelled as columbiana . Morphological distinctions between Campanularia and Orthopyxis have been reviewed in works such as those of Calder (1991a), Cornelius (1995b), and Bouillon et al. (2006).

Wedler (1976) observed and described two morphotypes of C. colombiana in his original account of this species. Specimens of “ Type I”, from shallow waters (3–5 m) at Ensenada de Concha and Banco Pobea, Bahía de Santa Marta, differed from those of “ Type II”, from deeper depths (20 m) at Bahía de Gaira, in having hydrothecae that were much smaller and more shallow. Hydroids from southwest Florida examined here (ROMIZ B4356, ROMIZ B4422) corresponded in both shape and size with the “ Type II” form. Those found and illustrated by Joyce (1961, as Clytia sp. A) and Shier (1965, as Clytia species Joyce) from other locations on the Gulf coast of Florida appear to resemble “ Type I”.

Fertile colonies of this little-known hydroid were collected during March 2018 from Thalassia at Sanibel Island, Florida. Gonophores were fixed sporosacs, with well-developed eggs observed inside the gonothecae.

Thus far, C. colombiana is known only from the Caribbean coast of Colombia and the Gulf coast of Florida, USA. With colonies that are tiny (<5 mm high) and superficially similar to certain other campanulariids and clytiids, the species is easy to overlook. Its distribution in the warm western North Atlantic is almost certainly much wider than currently reported.

Reported distribution. Gulf coast of Florida. Seahorse Key ( Joyce 1961: 51, as Clytia sp. A).— Cape San Blas area ( Shier 1965: 37, as Clytia species Joyce) .

Elsewhere in western North Atlantic. Colombia: Santa Marta area ( Wedler 1976: 42, as Clytia colombiana ; Bandel & Wedler 1987: 41, as Campanularia columbiana (sic); Wedler 2017b: 88, figs. 77–79, as Clytia colombiana ).

Figures

FIGURE 10. a, Campanularia colombiana: hydrotheca, pedicel and stolon, Sanibel Island, ROMIZ B4356. Scale equals 0.1 mm. b, Campanularia colombiana: gonotheca and stolon, Sanibel Island, ROMIZ B4356. Scale equals 0.1 mm. c, Clytia elsaeoswaldae: hydrotheca and part of pedicel, Sanibel Island, ROMIZ B4369. Scale equals 0.1 mm. d, Clytia elsaeoswaldae: gonotheca, Sanibel Island, ROMIZ B4369. Scale equals 0.1 mm. e, Clytia elsaeoswaldae: pedicel and hydrotheca, Sanibel Island, ROMIZ B4369. Scale equals 0.2 mm. f, Clytia hemisphaerica: part of colony with hydrothecae and gonothecae, Sanibel Island, ROMIZ B4371. Scale equals 0.2 mm. g, Clytia hemisphaerica: hydrotheca and part of pedicel, Sanibel Island, ROMIZ B4372. Scale equals 0.1 mm. h, Clytia hemisphaerica: gonotheca, Sanibel Island, ROMIZ B4372. Scale equals 0.1 mm.