Description of Pseudocirrhipathes (Cnidaria: Anthozoa: Hexacorallia: Antipathidae), a new genus of whip black corals from the Indo-Pacific

Abstract

The new species, Pseudocirrhipathes mapia, is herein described from specimens coming from the coral reefs of the Bunaken Marine Park (North Sulawesi, Indonesia). The species is characterized by an unbranched thin corallum up to 1 m high (maximum basal thickness 4 mm), with large polyps arranged irregularly on one side of the stem, and by tentacles that are not completely contractile. The skeleton shows an array of spine morphologies along the stem, although most are typically verticillated in the apical section and highly tuberculated in the central portion. The study of its cnidome revealed the presence of an extremely long basitrich isorhiza. The morphological analysis has been coupled with a molecular study of the rDNA ITS sequences confirming the existence of the new genus Pseudocirrhipathes and its inclusion, together with the genus Allopathes, in a separate clade related to the Antipathidae. © 2009 Unione Zoologica Italiana.