Myriapora Zágoršek & Gordon, 2014, n. comb.

• Main Authors: Zágoršek, Kamil, Gordon, Dennis P.
• Format: Other/Unknown Material
• Language: unknown
• Published: 2014
• Subjects: Biodiversity; Taxonomy; Animalia; Bryozoa; Gymnolaemata; Cheilostomatida; Myriaporidae; Myriapora; Arctic; Pacific
• Online Access: https://zenodo.org/record/4837310; https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4837310

Myriapora Ξ beyrichi (Stoliczka, 1862) n. comb. (Fig. 6 G-H) Cellaria beyrichi Stoliczka, 1862: 83, pl. 1, fig. 10. MATERIAL EXAMINED. — Holotype, registered as 1859/0026/0133. DIAGNOSIS. — Colony multiserial, erect with circular cross section. Branch fragment comprising fewer than 20 autozooecia, these trapezoidal, with densely pseudoporous frontal shields bordered by smooth interzooidal boundaries that represent frontally eroded adjacent zooecial margins. Apertures large, more or less cleithridiate with wedge-shaped sinus delimited by prominent condyles. No avicularia or ooecia. REMARKS Ŋe smooth interzooecial boundaries and cleithridiate orifice are distinctive features of this species.Ŋe generic attribution is uncertain in the absence of ovicells and avicularia. Ŋe apertural shape most resembles that seen in Myriapora, a genus confined to Mediterranean and Arctic-Boreal waters, whose species, however, do not normally have such distinct interzooecial boundaries. A species with similarlooking zooecia is Myriapora kuhni Vávra, 2011, from the Oligocene of Germany; it is encrusting, however, and the visible autozooecial boundaries do not form such a wide outline. On the other hand, the colonial and zooecial morphology of Stoliczka’s species match that found in Opphiphorina Gordon & d’Hondt, 1997 (Phorioppniidae), a monotypic genus known only from New Caledonia and the Kermadec Islands in the Southwest Pacific. Oppiphorina epaxia (Gordon, 1984) has somewhat cleidridiate apertures (with a broader sinus, however) and densely perforated zooecia with raised margins that, if eroded, would present exactly the smooth interzooecial boundaries seen in C. beyrichi. Similar margins are seen in confamilial Phorioppnia Gordon & d’Hondt, 1997 from New Caledonia, which, however, has non-cleithridiate apertures and dimorphic female orifices. Only the finding of ovicells in Stoliczka’s species will settle the matter. Published as part of Zágoršek, Kamil & Gordon, Dennis P., 2014, Revision of ...