Scytophorus Hertwig 1882

• Main Authors: Gusmão, Luciana C., Rodríguez, Estefanía
• Format: Other/Unknown Material
• Language: unknown
• Published: Zenodo 2021
• Subjects: Biodiversity; Taxonomy; Animalia; Cnidaria; Anthozoa; Actiniaria; Halcampoididae; Scytophorus; Antarc*; antarcticus; Southern Ocean
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5752651; http://treatment.plazi.org/id/2964E41DFFB3FFC6FC1BC007FD10B416

GENUS SCYTOPHORUS HERTWIG, 1882 Diagnosis (after Carlgren, 1949; modifications in italics). Halcampoididae with elongate body and flat aboral end. Column indistinctly divisible into scapus and scapulus. Cuticle developed chiefly on scapus, with modified weak tenaculi more or less visible to the naked eye. No sphincter. Tentacles 14, with longitudinal muscles ectodermal. A single weak, ventral siphonoglyph without conchula. Mesenteries 14, six pairs plus one couple; individual mesenteries of couple with retractors faced towards dorsal pairs of directives, wherefore there is seemingly a single pair of directives. All mesenteries perfect, with retractors strong, restricted to kidneylike. Parietal muscles well developed. As a rule, all mesenteries fertile. Ciliate tracts of filaments may be discontinuous. Cnidom: spirocysts, basitrichs, p -mastigophores A . Type species: Scytophorus striatus by monotypy. Included species: Scytophorus antarcticus (Pfeffer, 1889) and S. striatus. Remarks: We modified the generic diagnosis by removing the mention of a physa-like structure in members of Scytophorus . Although Hertwig (1882) described S. striatus as lacking a pedal disc and with a round aboral end, all of the S. striatus specimens examined had a distinct flat aboral end (Figs 6C, 7A, F) as seen attached to solid substrates (Fig. 6A). Although most of the specimens of S. striatus observed had their distal column and oral disc contracted, when they are relaxed, the scapulus can be easily distinguished from the rest of the column (see Fig. 6D). We left in the diagnosis the presence of a weak siphonoglyph, but this structure was difficult to observe in dissections (Fig. 7G), histological sections or micro-CT scans (Fig. 7K), as noted by others (e.g. Carlgren, 1921). Published as part of Gusmão, Luciana C. & Rodríguez, Estefanía, 2021, Two sea anemones (Cnidaria: Anthozoa: Actiniaria) from the Southern Ocean with evidence of a deep-sea, polar lineage of burrowing sea anemones, pp. 1392-1415 in Zoological Journal of the ...