New and little-known species of Didemnidae (Ascidiacea, Tunicata) from Australia (Part 3) Author Kott, Patricia text Journal of Natural History 2005 2005-06-30 39 26 2409 2479 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00222930500087077 journal article 10.1080/00222930500087077 1464-5262 5215680 Leptoclinides minimus sp. nov. ( Figures 2A,B , 14E ) Distribution Type locality: Western Australia ( Marmion Lagoon , coll. P. Berry , C. Brice, 10 November 1983 , holotype WAM 30.84 ) . Figure 2. Leptoclinides minimus sp. nov. (WAM 30.84, holotype). (A) Thorax; (B) abdomen. Scale bars: 0.1 mm. Description The holotype is a fragment of a white sheet with an even surface covered with minute, crowded, spicule-filled, flat-topped papillae. Stellate branchial apertures are surrounded by crowded spicules. Spicules are crowded throughout the surface layer of test and are in a thin layer on the base of the colony, but they are sparse elsewhere. Spicules are small (to 0.04 mm diameter), burr-shaped to stellate, with 17 or more conical pointed to roundtipped rays in optical transverse section. Zooids are very small. The atrial aperture is posterior, almost sessile and two-lipped. Strong transverse muscles are in the interstigmatal bars, fine parallel thoracic muscles are in the pallial thoracic wall and a circular lateral organ is in the outer body wall on each side of the base of the short atrial siphon (opposite the interspace between the third and last rows of stigmata). Twelve stigmata are in the anterior row of the branchial sac and two coils of the vas deferens surround a circle of five to seven club-shaped male follicles. A large egg is outside the outer coil of the vas deferens. Remarks Despite their small size, these zooids are characteristic of the genus Leptoclinides . The few vas deferens coils is reminiscent of the dubius group, but the present species has a regular circle of testis follicles rather than the grape-like cluster in the dubius group of species ( Kott 2001). Leptoclinides carduus Kott, 2001 has few coils of the vas deferens and similar spicules but unlike the present species the spicules are crowded throughout the colony.