Ascidians collected during the Madibenthos expedition in Martinique: 2. Stolidobranchia, Styelidae
Author
Monniot, Françoise
text
Zootaxa
2018
2018-04-17
4410
2
291
318
journal article
30246
10.11646/zootaxa.4410.2.3
c099b7cc-9634-4455-b59e-d5a597998ee7
1175-5326
1221580
7A46BD51-20A9-4FDA-81FB-D771BA9011FC
Stolonica sabulosa
Monniot, 1972
Fig. 4
Station: AD, 241 (MNHN STO 31)
A colony of 12 zooids was settled on
Halimeda
algae. The individuals are distant from each other and only linked by stolons (
Fig.4A
). The bodies are upright and the siphons apical. The tunic is incrusted with sand. The body wall is light brown in formalin. Eighty tentacles were counted in one of the zooids. The dorsal tubercle is button like. The brown branchial sac (
Fig.4B
) has 3 folds on the right side and only 2 on the left side. All zooids are immature. The gut forms a single open loop loosely attached to the body wall. Seven folds can be seen on the visible side of the stomach which has a comma-like caecum. The anus has 2 lobes. There are 4 to 6 endocarps on the right side of the body wall and 3 on the left side.
Without gonads the species identification remains doubtful; it is based on a comparison with specimens collected in
Bermuda
(
Monniot C. 1972
) and in
Guadeloupe
(
Monniot C. & F. 1984
). They have the same colony shape, gut, branchial sac and endocarps in the zooids. Other specimens of
S. sabulosa
are present in the MNHN collection recorded from
Florida
in 1999 and from
Brazil
during the “Calypso” campaign in 1961.