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New species from the animal and plant kingdoms are discovered and described every day, often after months of field research
This is the idealized, exploratory and 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 to be scientifically described during the Astrolabe expeditions in New Zealand.
Typical of the time, the original description by Quoy & Gaimard is vague and based largely on features 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 lobed and encrusting specimens to this coral.
Consequently, several morphologically distinct forms were identified as possibly belonging to Alcyonium aurantiacum, although they are highly variable in terms of color, colony shape and sclerite morphology.
Dr. Kessel took up this challenge and his work led to the first description of no less than 10 new species, all of which had previously been assigned to Alcyonium aurantiacum.
One of these new species is the soft coral Ushanaia ferruginea.
Diagnosis
It is an encrusted, orange-colored colony with white polyps. The tentacles contain irregular, warty, scale-like sclerites.
The polyp neck contains abundant tuberculate to warty, rod-shaped sclerites.
The polyp mound contains larger warty rod-like, spindle-like and club-like forms.
The surface contains rays that merge into more elongated warty clubs. Inside with warty rays.
Shape of the colony
The holotype encrusts a ~15 cm long sponge fragment and consists of ~10 elevated, fleshy mounds containing polyps and connected by ribbon-like membranes.
These mounds range from a few millimeters to several centimeters in diameter, are up to ~5 mm thick, and vary from pale to bright orange (preserved in ethanol), fading to beige towards their edges.
The membranes are very thin (
This is the idealized, exploratory and 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 to be scientifically described during the Astrolabe expeditions in New Zealand.
Typical of the time, the original description by Quoy & Gaimard is vague and based largely on features 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 lobed and encrusting specimens to this coral.
Consequently, several morphologically distinct forms were identified as possibly belonging to Alcyonium aurantiacum, although they are highly variable in terms of color, colony shape and sclerite morphology.
Dr. Kessel took up this challenge and his work led to the first description of no less than 10 new species, all of which had previously been assigned to Alcyonium aurantiacum.
One of these new species is the soft coral Ushanaia ferruginea.
Diagnosis
It is an encrusted, orange-colored colony with white polyps. The tentacles contain irregular, warty, scale-like sclerites.
The polyp neck contains abundant tuberculate to warty, rod-shaped sclerites.
The polyp mound contains larger warty rod-like, spindle-like and club-like forms.
The surface contains rays that merge into more elongated warty clubs. Inside with warty rays.
Shape of the colony
The holotype encrusts a ~15 cm long sponge fragment and consists of ~10 elevated, fleshy mounds containing polyps and connected by ribbon-like membranes.
These mounds range from a few millimeters to several centimeters in diameter, are up to ~5 mm thick, and vary from pale to bright orange (preserved in ethanol), fading to beige towards their edges.
The membranes are very thin (
