The mushroom coral fauna (Scleractinia: Fungiidae) of Brunei Darussalam (South China Sea) and its relation to the Coral Triangle
Author
Hoeksema, Bert W.
Author
Lane, David J. W.
text
Raffles Bulletin of Zoology
2014
2014-08-05
62
566
580
journal article
10.5281/zenodo.5354576
2345-7600
5354576
7B5056EC-50B9-4BFE-9B94-061EA6B285E4
Lithophyllon ranjithi
Ditlev, 2003
Lithophyllon lobata
–
Turak & DeVantier, 2011: 145
.
One colour photograph of a live specimen published by
Turak & DeVantier (2011)
was taken in
Indonesia
; the origin of other photographs is unclear. They present this species as
L. lobata
, a junior synonym of
L. undulatum
(see Hoeksema, 1989). The
syntypes
of
L. lobata
are large, thin, twirled foliaceous corals with thin septa and mouths scattered over the whole upper surface, whereas specimens of
L. ranjithi
are thick laminar corals in one plane with folded margins, thick septa, and mouths concentrated at the centre of the upper surface.
L. ranjithi
is known from East Sabah and
East Kalimantan
(
Ditlev, 2003
; Hoeksema et al., 2004;
Waheed & Hoeksema, 2013
), and it has also been observed in the Kudat region at north Sabah and at Layang-Layang atoll in the South
China
Sea (Waheed & Hoeksema, in prep.). It was not found at the reefs of Kota Kinabalu (
Waheed & Hoeksema, 2014
), which are only about
150 km
away from
Brunei
in a NE direction.