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| Tubastraea megacorallita Yiu, Chung & Qiu, 2021 |
Abstract
Tubastraea, commonly known as sun coral, is a genus of brightly coloured azooxanthellate corals in the family Dendrophylliidae. The diversity of this genus is low, with only seven recognized species. Herein, we describe Tubastraea megacorallita sp. nov. from Hong Kong based on morphological and molecular analyses. This new species exhibits several characteristics of the genus including being colonial, having a rough texture of corallum and no epitheca. It can be distinguished from its congenerics by bigger corallites, and the Pourtalès plan arrangement of its septa. The rDNA gene sequences (consisting of ITS1, 5.8S, ITS2, 18S and 28S) showed 2.45–5.18% divergence from those of its closest relatives, T. coccinea and T. micranthus.
Keywords: Coelenterata, scleractinian coral, azooxanthellate, ahermatypic coral, dendrophylliid, South China Sea
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| Tubastraea megacorallita sp. nov.: A living specimen in the field; B: Skeleton of a specimen with tissues removed (TMBC030850); C: a corallite (TMBC030853); D: Fossa (TMBC030853); E: Costae (c) and Intercostal striae (i.s.) (TMBC030853). Scale bar: A-B: 1 cm; C: 5 mm; D-E: 1 mm. |
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| Possible predators of Tubastraea megacorallita sp. nov.: A: an individual of Phestilla melanobrachia feeding on T. coccinea; also shown are egg masses (yellow) of the nudibranch; B: an individual of Coralliophila costularis feeding on a colony of T. megacorallita sp. nov.; C: three individuals of Coralliophila costularis feeding on a colony of Tubastraea diaphana. D: an individual of Epidendrium sp. feeding on a colony of T. coccinea. |
Tubastraea megacorallita sp. nov.
Sam King Fung Yiu, Sheena Suet-Wah Chung and Jianwen Qiu. 2021. A New Species of the Sun Coral Genus Tubastraea (Scleractinia: Dendrophylliidae) from Hong Kong. Zootaxa. 5047(1); 1-16. DOI: 10.11646/zootaxa.5047.1.1
research.hkbu.edu.hk/news/hkbu-biologists-discover-new-coral-and-nudibranch-species
