First occurrence of the rare siphonophore Lilyopsis Chun, 1885 (Hydrozoa, Siphonophora, Prayinae) in South Africa

A colony of the rare hydrozoan siphonophore Lilyopsis Chun, 1885, was observed for the first time in shallow water in False Bay, South Africa, swimming amongst kelp. A study of a high-quality image of this individual found it to share some characters with the prayine prayid L. fluoracantha Haddock,...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Gillian M. Mapstone, Craig N. Foster, Mark J. Gibbons
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Pensoft Publishers 2022-10-01
Series:African Invertebrates
Online Access:https://africaninvertebrates.pensoft.net/article/94095/download/pdf/
Description
Summary:A colony of the rare hydrozoan siphonophore Lilyopsis Chun, 1885, was observed for the first time in shallow water in False Bay, South Africa, swimming amongst kelp. A study of a high-quality image of this individual found it to share some characters with the prayine prayid L. fluoracantha Haddock, Dunn & Pugh, 2005, so far known only from Monterey Bay, California, in the eastern Pacific. No Lilyopsis species has previously been reliably identified from either the South Atlantic or the Indian Ocean, so this record represents an expansion of the known worldwide distribution for this genus.
ISSN:2305-2562