Polyp: Hydranths with capitate tentacles in more than one whorl around oral portion of hydranth. Reproduction: Gonophores as eumedusoids. Ecology and Distribution: Common in shallow water and offshore on buoy chains. Recorded in western and eastern Atlantic Ocean, western and eastern Pacific Ocean, Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea. Common in Bocas del Toro. Remarks: Many species have been synonymized under P. disticha, but not P. wilsoni, P. armata, P. blistera and P. grandis. Pennaria wilsoni has been described as with only one whorl of oral capitate tentacles and only one hydranth per hydrocladia, but the other species were described based on the eumedusoid, and therefore can not be separated from P. disticha at the polyp stage.
Bocas Species Database
Distribution: Haiti, Colombia, St. Barthelemy, Virgin Islands, Jamaica, Puerto Rico, Costa Rica, and Panama. Characteristics: Pennaria forms a feather like colony, with alternate lateral branches arising from a central stem. Single polyps originate on the lateral branches, have a dome –shaped hypostome and two whorls of tentacles of which the upper is capitate and the lower filiform.