Scleractinia of the Temperate North Pacific

Cairns, Stephen D. Scleractinia of the Temperate North Pacific. Smithsonian Contributions to Zoology, number 557, 150 pages, 3 figures, 42 plates, 5 tables, 1994. —The 119 species of temperate North Pacific azooxanthellate Scleractinia are described or diagnosed in two separate accounts: the 25 species known to occur in the temperate northeastern Pacific and the 102 species known to occur in the temperate northwestern Pacific, there being only eight species in common. Three genera, six species, and one subspecies are described as new; nine new combinations are suggested; and 28 new records for the northern temperate regions are reported. A neotype for Desmophyllum dianthus (Esper, 1794) is designated. A dichotomous key to the temperate northeastern Pacific Scleractinia is provided, as well as a key to the seven species of northwestern Pacific Truncatoflabellum. Separate historical resumes are discussed and tabularized for the northeastern and northwestern temperate faunas. The study is based on new material from a variety of sources, but primarily from the cruises of the Albatross (USNM) and the R/V Tansei Mam (ORI), and the collections of the California Academy of Sciences, Royal British Columbia Museum, and the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. The region covered in this account extends from Bahia Magdalena on the Pacific coast of Baja California to Formosa Strait, off China, including two warm temperate provinces (California and Japan) and four cold temperate provinces (Oregon, Aleutian, Oriental, and Kurile). The most species-rich temperate region is the warm temperate northwestern Pacific Japan Province, which contains 92 azooxanthellate species. This province is directly adjacent to the even more species-rich Indo-West Pacific tropical region from which it receives many tropical and eurythermic tropical species via the warm, northerly flowing Kuroshio Current. Azooxanthellate species diversity decreases with higher latitude: 106 species occur in the combined warm temperate North Pacific provinces, 37 in the lower boreal provinces (Oregon and Oriental), and only 14 species occur in the combined upper boreal provinces (Aleutian and Kurile). The northernmost record of a scleractinian coral in the North Pacific is Caryophyllia arnoldi from Prince William Sound (60°48'N) in the Aleutian Province. This province also holds the record for the deepest living scleractinian coral, Fungiacyathus marenzelleri, at 6328 m in the Aleutian Trench. OFFICIAL PUBLICATION DATE is handstamped in a limited number of initial copies and is recorded in the Institution's annual report, Smithsonian Year. SERIES COVER DESIGN: The coral Montastrea cavernosa (Linnaeus). Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Dala Cairns, Stephen Scleractinia of the temperate North Pacific / Stephen D. Cairns p. cm. —(Smithsonian contributions to zoology ; no. 557 Includes bibliographical references (p. ). 1. Scleractinia—North Pacific Ocean. I. Series. QLl.S54no. 557 [QL377.C7] 591 s-dc20 [59.V. 5] 94-32147 CIP 'S> The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials Z39.48—1984.