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Every day new species from the animal and plant kingdoms are discovered and described, often after months of field research.
Thus the idealized, exploratory yet adventurous approach, but, the majority of species discoveries actually occur in the processing of collected specimens in a museum, according to Dr. Gustav M. Kessel of Victoria University of Wellington, Wellington, Aotearoa-New Zealand.
The soft coral Alcyonium aurantiacum, known as "Dead man's fingers," was one of the first corals scientifically described during the Astrolabe expeditions to New Zealand.
Typical of the time, the original description by Quoy & Gaimard is vague and based largely on characteristics that have little diagnostic value by today's standards. The only other taxonomic treatment of Alcyonium aurantiacum is the description by Benham (1928), which unfortunately further obscures the diversity of New Zealand coastal soft corals by assigning both lobate and encrusting specimens to this coral.
Consequently, several morphologically distinct forms were identified as possibly belonging to Alcyonium aurantiacum, despite being highly variable in color, colony shape, and sclerite morphology.
Dr. Kessel took on this challenge and his work resulted in an initial description of a whopping 10 new species previously assigned to Alcyonium aurantiacum.
One of these new species is the soft coral Kotatea aurantiacum.
Colonies of Kotatea aurantiacum consists of branched lobes, the color varies from pale to dark orange, with white polyps.
The tentacles contain irregular, warty, scale-like sclerites.
The polyp neck contains spiny spindles and warty, rod-like sclerites.
Polyp mounds contain slender, spiny clubs and warty rod-like and spindle-like sclerites.
Surface of lobes and base contains rays, clubs, and occasional leaf-like spheroids
Etymology:
The species name is a combination of the Latin "amici" meaning "friend" and "spongia" meaning "sponge", roughly meaning "friend of the sponge", referring to the habit of corals growing on sponges.
Literature reference:
Kessel, Gustav M., Alderslade, Philip, Bilewitch, Jaret P., Schnabel, Kareen E., Norman, Jerry, Potts, Romana Tekaharoa, Gardner, Jonathan P.A. (2022):
Dead man's fingers point to new taxa: two new genera of New Zealand soft corals (Anthozoa, Octocorallia) and a revision of Alcyonium aurantiacum Quoy & Gaimard, 1833
European Journal of Taxonomy 837: 1-85, DOI: https://doi.org/10.5852/ejt.2022.837.1923, URL: http://zoobank.org/7cbac71f-ff75-411c-9ce9-aa633e16438e
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Thus the idealized, exploratory yet adventurous approach, but, the majority of species discoveries actually occur in the processing of collected specimens in a museum, according to Dr. Gustav M. Kessel of Victoria University of Wellington, Wellington, Aotearoa-New Zealand.
The soft coral Alcyonium aurantiacum, known as "Dead man's fingers," was one of the first corals scientifically described during the Astrolabe expeditions to New Zealand.
Typical of the time, the original description by Quoy & Gaimard is vague and based largely on characteristics that have little diagnostic value by today's standards. The only other taxonomic treatment of Alcyonium aurantiacum is the description by Benham (1928), which unfortunately further obscures the diversity of New Zealand coastal soft corals by assigning both lobate and encrusting specimens to this coral.
Consequently, several morphologically distinct forms were identified as possibly belonging to Alcyonium aurantiacum, despite being highly variable in color, colony shape, and sclerite morphology.
Dr. Kessel took on this challenge and his work resulted in an initial description of a whopping 10 new species previously assigned to Alcyonium aurantiacum.
One of these new species is the soft coral Kotatea aurantiacum.
Colonies of Kotatea aurantiacum consists of branched lobes, the color varies from pale to dark orange, with white polyps.
The tentacles contain irregular, warty, scale-like sclerites.
The polyp neck contains spiny spindles and warty, rod-like sclerites.
Polyp mounds contain slender, spiny clubs and warty rod-like and spindle-like sclerites.
Surface of lobes and base contains rays, clubs, and occasional leaf-like spheroids
Etymology:
The species name is a combination of the Latin "amici" meaning "friend" and "spongia" meaning "sponge", roughly meaning "friend of the sponge", referring to the habit of corals growing on sponges.
Literature reference:
Kessel, Gustav M., Alderslade, Philip, Bilewitch, Jaret P., Schnabel, Kareen E., Norman, Jerry, Potts, Romana Tekaharoa, Gardner, Jonathan P.A. (2022):
Dead man's fingers point to new taxa: two new genera of New Zealand soft corals (Anthozoa, Octocorallia) and a revision of Alcyonium aurantiacum Quoy & Gaimard, 1833
European Journal of Taxonomy 837: 1-85, DOI: https://doi.org/10.5852/ejt.2022.837.1923, URL: http://zoobank.org/7cbac71f-ff75-411c-9ce9-aa633e16438e
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
