Sclerophyllia
Klunzinger, 1879, p. 4
Type Species
Sclerophyllia margariticola Klunzinger, 1879, p. 4, pl. 1: fig. 12; Monotypy
Type Specimen: Lectotype; ZMB Cni 2181; Verified; Dry Preserved
Type Locality: 'Koseir'
Classification
Diagnosis
Colonial or solitary; colonies submassive or massive. Budding intracalicular and extracalicular in colonies. Corallites monomorphic; discrete. Monticules absent. Coenosteum spinose; limited amount (includes double wall) in colonies. Calice width large (> 15 mm), with high relief (> 6 mm). Costosepta mostly not confluent. Septa in ≥ four cycles (≥ 48 septa). Free septa irregular. Septa spaced < 6 septa per 5 mm. Costosepta unequal in relative thickness. Columellae trabecular and spongy (> three threads), < 1/4 of calice width, and discontinuous among adjacent corallites with lamellar linkage. Internal lobes usually absent; paliform (uniaxial) lobes weakly developed if present. Epitheca well developed. Endotheca low-moderate (tabular). Tooth base at midcalice elliptical-parallel. Tooth tip orientation parallel. Teeth tall (> 0.6 mm); widely spaced (> 1 mm), with > six teeth per septum. Tooth shape unequal between first and third order septa. Tooth size equal between wall and septum. Granules scattered on septal face; irregular in shape. Interarea palisade. Walls formed by dominant paratheca and partial septotheca. Thickening deposits in concentric rings with extensive stereome. Costa centre clusters strong; > 0.6 mm between clusters; medial lines weak. Septum centre clusters weak; > 0.5 mm between clusters; medial lines weak.
Description
'Polypar mit sehr entwickelter Epithek, an der Basis breit, aufgewachsen, im Alter nicht frei, nieder, ziemlich breit. Rippen in der Nähe des Kelchrandes wohl entwickelt, oben mit einigen Dörnchen, weiter herab durch die Epithek ganz verdeckt. Septa debordirend, breit, zahlreich; die grösseren dick, sehr grob und ungleich gezähnt, auch innen und unten. Die Columella hat die Tendenz, compact zu werden. Auch die Interseptalräume der Kelche zeigen die Neigung, sich auszufüllen mit compacter Substanz.' (Klunzinger, 1879: 4)
Comparisons
The well-developed epitheca is an unambiguous synapomorphy (likelihood of 1.00 based on the Mk1 model) recovered for the Sclerophyllia clade. The two members of this genus share all the micromorphological characteristics analysed here, including those that have been illustrated by Arrigoni et al. (2015), i.e. high elliptical septal teeth parallel to the septum, irregular lobate tips, wide tooth spacing (> 1 mm), granules scattered on the septal face, and a palisade interarea. Sclerophyllia is closely related to Moseleya. They form a monophyletic group on the morphological tree and a paraphyletic grade on the molecular tree. However, they are separated based on the more common presence of weak to moderate paliform lobes, reduced epitheca and smaller tooth spacing in Moseleya. Monostomatous Sclerophyllia specimens are always of the species S. margariticola. The only other lobophylliid taxon that is exclusively monostomatous is Cynarina.
Remarks
The genus was described by Klunzinger (1879: 4) for the solitary and monocentric species Sclerophyllia margariticola Klunzinger, 1879: 4, first collected from the Red Sea in Egypt. It was later found in Djibouti by Gravier (1907, 1911; see also Vaughan, 1907) but, soon after, synoymised under Lobophyllia (Matthai, 1928) and Symphyllia (Wells, 1937, 1956; Vaughan and Wells, 1943) as monocentric juvenile stages of these colonial genera. Sclerophyllia, Rhodocyathus Bourne, 1905: 191, and Protolobophyllia Yabe and Sugiyama, 1935: 381, were subsequently considered a junior synonym of Cynarina by Wells (1964) and Veron and Pichon (1980). Specifically, they regarded Cynarina lacrymalis (Milne Edwards and Haime, 1849a, vol. 11: 238) and S. margariticola to be the same species. However, the most recent phylogenetic analyses performed by Arrigoni et al. (2015) and the present study based on both molecular and morphological data, have demonstrated that S. margariticola is a distinct species most closely related to a species restricted to the Arabian Peninsula, Acanthastrea maxima Sheppard and Salm, 1988: 276, and not the widespread C. lacrymalis. The monophyly of S. margariticola + A. maxima, also known as subclade C (sensu Arrigoni et al., 2014c), is well supported, and thus Sclerophyllia has been been resurrected to incorporate these two species (Arrigoni et al., 2015). Sclerophyllia is restricted to the reefs of Arabian Peninsula and Arabian Sea (Sheppard and Sheppard, 1991; Veron, 2000; Arrigoni et al., 2015).
Distribution
This page has been in preparation since 21-Jul-2010 14:40
This version was contributed by Danwei Huang on 29-Jan-2016 14:14.
Page authors are: Ann Budd Danwei Huang. Please contact the editor if you would like to contribute to the diagnosis of this taxon.
The editor is: Ann Budd
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