Notes on Indo-Pacific Scleractinian Corals, Part 3 
A New Reef Coral from New Caledonia 
John W. Wells 1 
In 1957 Dr. R. L. A., Catala of the Station de 
Biologic Marine, Noumea, New Caledonia, dis- 
covered the brilliant fluorescence in ultraviolet 
light of the polyps of reef corals living in deeper 
waters (see, Nature 1(83): 949, 1959; Life 
47(3): 64-65, 1959; 2 6 franc postage stamp 
of New Caledonia issued March 21, 1958 ) . Dr. 
Catala kindly sent the writer a collection of these 
corals, together with photographs of many of 
them living in the Aquarium de Noumea. The 
specimens came from a depth of 35-40 m. on 
Banc Gail, in the lagoon of Noumea about 10 
mi. from the Aquarium, and were collected by 
Dr. Yves Merlet, for whom the new species 
described below is named. The scleractinian 
fauna includes these species: 
Montip ora caliculata (Dana) 
M. verrucosa (Lam.) 
Goniopora lobata Milne Edwards & Haime 
Pavia speciosa ( Dana ) 
Favites ahdita ( Ellis & Solander ) 
Platygyra lamellina (Ehrenberg) 
Ecbinopora hirsutissima M. E. & LI. 
Trachyphyllia geoffroyi ( Audouin) 
Galaxea fascicularis ( Linn. ) 
Bantamia merleti sp. nov. 
Cynarina lacrymalis (M. E. & H.) 2 
Protolobophyllia japonica Yabe & Sugiya- 
ma 2 
Lobophyllia corymbosa (Forskaal) 
L. hemprichi (Ehrenb.) 
Symp by Ilia recta (Dana) 
Mycedium elephantotus (Pallas) 
Eupbyllia picteti Bedot 3 
Piero gyra sinuosa (Dana) 
1 Department of Geology, Cornell University, Ithaca, 
New York. Manuscript received February 1, I960. 
2 These two species will be the subject of a subse- 
quent note. 
3 Photographs by Dr. Catala of the living coralla of 
this species show an exact similarity, including color, 
between its polyps and those of Pectinia jardinei 
Saville-Kent (1893: 39; 1958: pi. 25, fig. 3, and 
chromo pi. 4, fig. 7) from the northern part of the 
Great Barrier Reef, and this form probably should be 
termed Euphyllia jardinei (Saville-Kent). E. picteti 
was originally described from Amboina by Bedot and 
has been reported by the writer (1955: 26) from Port 
Newry, Queensland. 
family OCULINIDAE 
SUBFAMILY GALAXEINAE 
genus Bantamia Yabe & Eguchi 1943 
Bantamia merleti sp. nov. 
Figs. 1-4 
Corallum fasciculate, 10 cm. in height, 10 
cm. broad (holotype), formed by cylindrical 
corallites, 5-7 mm. in diameter, 4-7 mm. apart, 
arising by extratentacular budding from a very 
narrow edge -zone near the calices, at first sub- 
horizontal, then becoming erect and subparallel 
and losing organic connection with parents. Ex- 
terior of corallites costate only near calices, 
epithecate below, completely lacking any exo- 
thecal structures. Calices circular or slightly com- 
pressed, 5-7 mm. in diameter, shallow. Septa 
exsert 1-1.5 mm. near the wall, dropping to low 
inner lobes near the columella. Septal margins 
thickened where exsert, nondentate but finely 
granulated, the granulations extending down 
septal sides where they are evenly distributed. 
Septa of first two cycles ( 12 ) equal and extend- 
ing to columella; a few very thin, short septa 
of the third cycle developed in some systems. 
Costae weakly developed by narrow edge-zone 
near calices; in some corallites the edge-zone is 
not developed and the wall appears epithecal. 
Columella formed by interlaced loose trabecular 
processes from inner margins of septa, with one 
to three granulate papillae arising in bottom of 
the calice and commonly having a sublamellar 
aspect. Endotheca consisting of widely spaced, 
deeply concave single vesicles, the latest ones 
about 5 mm. below bottom of calice. 
Polyps pale brown with pale yellow-green 
peristomes. Peristomes fluorescing a pale emer- 
ald green, the remainder a pale orange-brown. 
The reference of this species to Bantamia is 
fairly certain on the basis of Yabe and Eguchi ’s 
careful description of the unique specimen of 
B. gerthi from the Miocene deposits of Java. 
B. merleti , also known from a unique specimen, 
lacks the feeble development of vesicular exo- 
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