Leptoclinides variegatus Kott, 2001

Kott, Patricia, 2004, New and little-known species of Didemnidae (Ascidiacea, Tunicata) from Australia (part I), Journal of Natural History 38 (19), pp. 731-774 : 738

Leptoclinides variegatus Kott, 2001

( figure 3D )

Leptoclinides variegatus Kott, 2001: 86 and synonymy.

Distribution. New record: South Australia (Kangaroo I., SAM E2908). Previously recorded (see Kott, 2001): South Australia (Great Australian Bight, Spencer Gulf, Gulf St Vincent, Investigator Strait).

Description. The newly recorded colony is a robust flat sheet with a smooth upper surface. Only traces of the marble pattern persist as minute pigment particles scattered amongst the zooids. Stellate spicules (to 0.09 mm diameter) with 9–13 chisel-shaped, or truncated, or conical rays are moderately crowded in the upper half of the colony amongst the zooids and are completely absent in the basal half. Common cloacal cavities are oesophageal, but become posterior abdominal cavities beneath the large sessile common cloacal apertures around the margin of the colony.

Remarks. The robust, smooth-surfaced, sheet-like colonies with oesophageal common cloacal canals, and relatively large stellate spicules (some with conical pointed rays, some chisel-shaped, and others truncated) moderately crowded in the upper part of the colony and absent from the basal half are as previously described. Although Kott (2001) did not report spicules with nine rays in optical transverse section they are shown in her micrograph ( Kott, 2001: figure 159B).

Figures

FIG. 3. Leptoclinides tuberculatus: (A) vertical section through colony (QM G308540); (B) zooid (QM G308536); (C) spicules (QM G308539). Leptoclinides variegatus (SAM E2908): (D) spicules. Scales: (A) 1.0 mm; (B) 0.1 mm.