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Four new species and three new records of benthic ctenophores (Family: Coeloplanidae) from the Red Sea

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Abstract

During 2012–2013 we surveyed the benthic ctenophore fauna of the Gulf of Aqaba, Red Sea. Four new species, three new records and one known species of benthic ctenophores (family Coeloplanidae) were discovered living as episymbionts on various invertebrates and algae: (1) Coeloplana loyai n. sp. (on the mushroom corals Herpolitha limax Esper, 1797 and Ctenactis echinata Pallas, 1766), (2) Coeloplana yulianicorum n. sp. (on the soft coral Sarcophyton glaucum Quoy and Gaimard, 1833), (3) Coeloplana huchonae n. sp. (on the stems of Dendronephthya hemprichi Klunzinger, 1877), (4) Coeloplana fishelsoni n. sp. (on colonies of Xenia umbellata Lamarck, 1816 and Paralemnalia Kukenthal, 1913), (5) Coeloplana punctata Fricke, 1970 and (6) Coeloplana lineolata Fricke, 1970 – both are new records in the Red Sea (found on colonies of S. glaucum), (7) Coeloplana bannwarthi Krumbach, 1933 on the spines of the sea urchin Diadema setosum Leske, 1778, and (8) Vallicula multiformis Rankin, 1956, another member of the family, was recorded for the first time from the Red Sea from brown algae, Sargassum seaweed and the holothurian Pearsonothuria graeffei Semper, 1868. All four new species of benthic ctenophores are different from other known Coeloplana species by their host identity, color, and color pattern. The documentation of V. multiformis in the Gulf of Aqaba , Red Sea is a remarkable extension of its geographic distribution, which until now was only reported from the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. These findings demonstrate the great potential of discovering new species of this understudied group, especially in coral reef ecosystems.

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Acknowledgments

We wish to thank Claudia Mills and another anonymous reviewer for their valuable and insightful remarks on an early version of this manuscript; R. Holzman and V. China for providing us with lab space and equipment at the Interuniversity Institute of Marine Sciences in Eilat; O. Ben-Shaprut for the logistic help with the night dives; A. Halátsz for the identification of Xenia umbellata; N. Paz for editorial help. This research was partially supported by The Steinhardt National Natural History Museum and Research Center (Tel-Aviv University), by a fellowship from the Israel Taxonomy Initiative (ITI) to AA and by the Israel Science Foundation (ISF) No. 341/12 and USAID/MERC grant No. M32-037 to YL.

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  1. Department of Zoology, George S. Wise Faculty of Life Sciences, Tel-Aviv University, Tel-Aviv, 69978, Israel

    Ada Alamaru & Yossi Loya

  2. The Israel Society of Ecology and Environmental Sciences, Tel-Aviv, Israel

    Eran Brokovich

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  1. Ada Alamaru
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Correspondence to Ada Alamaru.

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Communicated by P. Martinez Arbizu

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Alamaru, A., Brokovich, E. & Loya, Y. Four new species and three new records of benthic ctenophores (Family: Coeloplanidae) from the Red Sea. Mar Biodiv 46, 261–279 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12526-015-0362-4

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