Clytia noliformis
Creators: name: Calder, Dale R.
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2013
Subjects: Biodiversity
Taxonomy
Animalia
Cnidaria
Hydrozoa
Leptothecata
Campanulariidae
Clytia
Clytia noliformis

description: Clytia noliformis (McCrady, 1859)   
Fig. 16a, b  
 Campanularia noliformis McCrady, 1859: 194, pl. 11, fig. 4.   
 Type locality. Bermuda: Castle Harbour, on a dead octocoral (International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature 2002); based on a neotype.   
 Voucher material. Fort Pierce, Fort Pierce Inlet State Park, 27°28’29.5”N, 80°17’25.8”W, on stranded Sargassum natans, 14.vii.2012, 28° C, 35‰, collected manually, two colonies, with gonophores, coll. D.R. Calder, ROMIZ B3984.   
 Remarks. The hydroid species recorded here, widely known for a century as Clytia noliformis (McCrady, 1859), has been objectively defined recently by a neotype (International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature 2002). Evidence had arisen that the binomen C. noliformis was likely applied by McCrady (1859) to a different species (Calder 1991a; Lindner & Calder 2000), more closely resembling C. hemisphaerica (Linnaeus, 1767). A neotype was therefore needed to conserve prevailing usage of the name. McCrady’s hydrozoan types (including any of C. noliformis) are believed to have been destroyed during the American Civil War (Stephens & Calder 1992).   
 Clytia noliformis is an abundant epibiont on pelagic Sargassum, and especially so on S. natans (Burkenroad, in Parr 1939; Calder 1995). Colonies grow quickly outwards onto new phylloids (leaflets) and bladders of these fucoids, and are least abundant on the oldest and innermost parts of the thalli (Ryland 1974). Niermann (1986) reported that C. noliformis was more prevalent on S. natans north of a thermal front in the Sargasso Sea than south of it. The difference was attributed to greater water stratification in the south and to a lower nutrient supply, resulting in less food (nannoplankton) for the hydroid.   
 A combination of morphological characters can be used to distinguish Clytia noliformis from its congeners (colonies stolonal; hydrothecae about equal in height and breadth at the margin; marginal cusps triangular; basal chambers of hydrothecae shallow; subhydrothecal spherule present; coenosarc and hydranths yellowish), and merotrichous isorhiza nematocysts are diagnostic (Lindner & Migotto 2001, 2002). As for gonothecae, they are urn-shaped, arise from the hydrorhiza, have walls that are slightly undulated and cylindrical to laterally compressed, and the distal end bears a tubular neck (Calder 1991a). The cnidome of C. noliformis includes microbasic b-mastigophores as well as merotrichous isorhizas.   
 The life cycle of C. noliformis has been followed in the laboratory from hydroid to adult medusa stages (Lindner & Migotto 2002). A detailed taxonomic account of the species has been given earlier (Calder 1991a).   
 Reported distribution. Atlantic coast of Florida. First record.   
 Western Atlantic. Nova Scotia, on Sargassum (Fraser 1918), to Brazil (Oliveira et al. submitted), and including Bermuda (Calder 1991a), the Gulf of Mexico (Calder & Cairns 2009), and the Caribbean Sea (Vervoort 1968, as Campanularia (Clytia) noliformis).   
Elsewhere. Sargasso Sea (Niermann 1986); warm waters of the eastern Atlantic (Rees & White 1966; Wirtz 2007) including the Mediterranean Sea (Faucci & Boero 2000), Indian Ocean (Mammen 1965), western Pacific (Kirkendale & Calder 2003), and eastern Pacific (Fraser 1948).
description: Published as part of Calder, Dale R., 2013, Some shallow-water hydroids (Cnidaria: Hydrozoa) from the central east coast of Florida, USA, pp. 1-72 in Zootaxa 3648 (1) on pages 55-57, DOI: 10.11646/zootaxa.3648.1.1, http://zenodo.org/record/5264362