|
|
Family: Aglaopheniidae
|
Polyp: Colonies erect, small. Hydrorhiza creeping, wrinkled. Hydrocaulus unbranched, monosiphonic, slender. Hydrocladia alternate. Hydrothecae with four pairs of lateral cusps and a median, abcauline cusp; with median, abcauline carina extending from mesial nematotheca until base of abcauline marginal cusp; with complete intrathecal septum running from adcauline to abcauline wall. Lateral nematothecae not extending beyond hydrothecal rim. Mesial inferior nematotheca covering basal third of abcauline wall. Reproduction: Gonophores as sporosacs developing in gonothecae enclosed in bean-shaped corbulae. Specimens from Bocas del Toro were not fertile. Ecology and Distribution: Widely distributed in the tropical, subtropical and temperate Atlantic, with some dispersed records from the Indian and Pacific Oceans. In Bocas del Toro collected from the docks and the weather station of the Bocas del Toro Research Station - Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute. Remarks: Besides being a component of the benthos, the species is commonly found on floating Sargassum. Similar taxa: Congeneric Aglaophenia dubia has also been recorded in Bocas del Toro. Bocas Species Database Distribution: Bonaire, Curaçao, Aruba, Haiti, Venezuela, Klein Bonaire, Islas de Aves, St. Eustatius, Ile Fourche, Virgin Islands, Colombia, Belize, and Panama. |