[Cnidaria] Antarctic Pandaeid?

[Claudia Mills]

Hi Rob,

It does seem to be a Leuckartiara or a Neoturris. I've found a number  
of Pandeids on cruises that don't correspond well to described  
species. You didn't give a size, but I am assuming 20-35 mm tall. It's  
not a Zanclonia, which would have distinctive tentacles with a series  
of adaxial nematocyst filaments, which you would have noticed. Check  
the gonads to place in Leuckartiara (folds only) or Neoturris (folds  
and pits) -- both genera have mesenteries between gonads and radial  
canals, which yours has. You should check Larson's Southern Ocean  
monograph.

Larson and Harbison described (1990) Leuckartiara brownei from McMurdo  
Sound, with 4 large perradial tentacles and 28 small ones between - it  
isn't that. Neoturris pileata has a north Atlantic and Med  
distribution - my biogeographic sense says that it is very unlikely to  
be near Antarctica. N. breviconis (which G. Mackie has been looking at  
up close in the last several weeks has lots of tentacles, but no  
evidence of those exaggerated diverticulae off the radial canals and  
no southern Ocean references at all.

In my new Light's manual key, I divide things related to this as with  
more, or less than 60 tentacles. There are very few choices with more  
(L. breviconis and some huge (8 cm tall) colorless pandeid from  
offshore surface California waters).

There might be some "new" Antarctic or Southern Ocean things described  
that I missed in my hour of intermittent Friday night Google Scholar  
explorations from home.

Claudia