A first phylogenetic study on stoloniferous octocorals off the coast of Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, Malaysia, with the description of two new genera and five new species
Sabah, Malaysia, is well known for its extensive and diverse coral reefs. It is located on the northwestern edge of the Coral Triangle, the region with the highest marine biodiversity. Much of the marine fauna here is still unknown, especially inconspicuous animals, such as small stoloniferous octoc...
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Published in | ZooKeys Vol. 872; no. 2; pp. 127 - 158 |
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Main Authors | , |
Format | Journal Article |
Language | English |
Published |
Sofia
Pensoft Publishers
26.08.2019
|
Subjects | |
Online Access | Get full text |
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Summary: | Sabah, Malaysia, is well known for its extensive and diverse coral reefs. It is located on the northwestern edge of the Coral Triangle, the region with the highest marine biodiversity. Much of the marine fauna here is still unknown, especially inconspicuous animals, such as small stoloniferous octocorals, which are common on coral reefs. Here, we describe two new monospecific genera of the family Arulidae found off the coast of Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, East Malaysia;
Bunga payung
gen. nov. et sp. nov.
and
Laeta waheedae
gen. nov. et sp. nov.
As well, the stoloniferan genus
Phenganax
Alderslade & McFadden, 2011 belonging to the family Clavulariidae is expanded with three new species,
P. marumi
sp. nov.
,
P. subtilis
sp. nov.
, and
P. stokvisi
sp. nov.
, which are all sclerite-free. Additionally, we report a possibly undescribed species, closely related to the clavulariid genera
Azoriella
Lopez-Gonzalez & Gili, 2001 and
Cervera
Lopez-Gonzalez et al., 1995. As this and other recent studies have shown, discoveries of small stoloniferous octocorals are helping to fill gaps in our knowledge of the overall systematics of Octocorallia. |
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Bibliography: | ObjectType-Article-1 SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1 ObjectType-Feature-2 content type line 23 Academic editor: B.W. Hoeksema |
ISSN: | 1313-2989 1313-2970 |
DOI: | 10.3897/zookeys.872.36288 |