Cladiella globulifera ( Klunzinger, 1877 )

Lazar, Einav, Mcfadden, Catherine S., Huchon, Dorothée & Benayahu, Yehuda, 2025, Redescription of type material of the genus Cladiella Gray, 1869 (Octocorallia, Malacalcyonacea, Cladiellidae) from the Red Sea, Zootaxa 5674 (1), pp. 1-84 : 36-39

publication ID	https://doi.org/10.11646/zootaxa.5674.1.1
publication LSID	lsid:zoobank.org:pub:FF8F0124-E9C0-45E0-9989-C0B74BF11036
persistent identifier	https://treatment.plazi.org/id/039787D2-FC7B-FFF7-EDA9-F9E38F6FE6C8
treatment provided by	Plazi
scientific name	Cladiella globulifera ( Klunzinger, 1877 )
status

Treatment

Cladiella globulifera ( Klunzinger, 1877) View in CoL

( Figs. 15D View FIGURE 15 , 22 View FIGURE 22 & 23 View FIGURE 23 )

Alcyonium globuliferum Klunzinger, 1877: 23–24 , Fig. 2 View FIGURE 2 .

Microspicularia globuliferum ; Macfadyen 1936: 29.

Lobularia globulifera View in CoL ; Tixier-Durivault 1944a: 185; Tixier-Durivault 1948: 173–178, Figs. 168–172.? Alcyonium globuliferum ; Lüttschwager 1914: 23; 1922: 532.

? Lobularia globuliferum ; Thomson & Dean 1931: 40.

? Cladiella globulifera View in CoL ; Fabricius et al. 2007: 90 ( Palau, listed only).

Not Lobularia sphaerophora ; Targioni-Tozzetti 1872: 455.

Material examined. Holotype. ZMB Cni 1873, Koseir (= El Quseir), Red Sea, 1872, coll. C. B. Klunzinger.

Description. The holotype colony is an encrusting colony with a maximum cross-section of 56 x 39 mm featuring densely placed rounded lobes and lobules ( Fig. 15D View FIGURE 15 ). The tentacles of most polyps are visible on the colony surface and only some of the polyps are fully retracted.

The sclerome of the polyps comprises some figure-eight sclerites and in addition double-heads, 0.03–0.05 mm long ( Fig. 22A View FIGURE 22 ). Their surface microstructure appears to be perforated and occasionally with an indication of a cristate-like texture. Some of the polyp sclerites feature two surface notches. The sclerites of the surface of the lobes are double-heads, 0.04–0.06 mm long, featuring a narrow waist, 0.01–0.02 mm wide and up to only 0.01 mm in length ( Fig. 22B View FIGURE 22 ). Their surface is perforated similarly to the polyp sclerites. Some of these sclerites have a notch in each of the two sclerite heads. The sclerites from the interior of the lobes are dumbbells and transitional forms between double-heads and dumbbells, 0.07–0.09 mm long, featuring a waist up to 0.03 mm wide and up to 0.02 mm long ( Fig. 22C View FIGURE 22 ). Both sclerite types feature only rounded tubercles on their surface. The sclerites of the surface of the colony base comprise poorly developed dumbbells, 0.06–0.08 mm long ( Fig. 23A View FIGURE 23 ), as well as double-heads, 0.05–0.07 mm long ( Fig. 23B View FIGURE 23 ). Both sclerite types display a perforated surface microstructure, mainly on the sclerite heads, which commonly include a notch. The interior of the colony base presents dumbbells, 0.08–0.12 mm long, with rounded tubercles and occasionally blunt-ended conical ones ( Fig. 23C View FIGURE 23 ). Their bare waist is 0.02–0.04 mm wide and up to 0.02 mm long.

Color. The ethanol preserved holotype ZMB Cni 1873 is cream .

Remarks. The original description of the holotype of C. globulifera depicted drawings of both the colony and of a few double-head sclerites ( Klunzinger, 1877: 23–24, Fig. 2 View FIGURE 2 ). The current study is the first since then to provide the detailed morphological characters of that holotype. The SEM images of the sclerites of the type emphasize their unique morphological characters, which include double-heads with a perforated surface microstructure and dumbbell sclerites with rounded tubercles. It should be noted that this species has dumbbells up to 0.12 mm, the longest recorded for the genus and similar to several other congeneric Red Sea types (see Table 2). The present study has revealed that among all the re-described congeners such double-head sclerites are found only in C. globulifera . These findings should be further considered in order to determine whether this species should be taxonomically assigned to a different genus than Cladiella .

Tixier-Durivault (1948) did not describe the type of C. globulifera , but instead a colony collected in 1878 from the Red Sea by Klunzinger and assigned to this species. That colony, as well as the additional records of the species noted above, should be re-examined in order to validate their taxonomic assignment .

Distribution. Kosseir (=El Quseir), Egyptian Red Sea.

ZMB	Museum für Naturkunde Berlin (Zoological Collections)

Copyright notice

No known copyright restrictions apply. See Agosti, D., Egloff, W., 2009. Taxonomic information exchange and copyright: the Plazi approach. BMC Research Notes 2009, 2:53 for further explanation.

Taxonomy

Kingdom	Animalia
Phylum	Cnidaria
Class	Anthozoa
Order	Alcyonacea
Family	Alcyoniidae
Genus	Cladiella