Gems of the southern Japanese seas – four new species of Edwardsianthus (Anthozoa, Actiniaria, Edwardsiidae) with redescriptions of two species

By

Izumi, Takato
Fujii, Takuma

Type

Article

Date of Publication

2021

Original Publication

ZooKeys

Volume

1076

Pages

151--182

Subjects

cnidae , Cnidaria , Kochi , Nansei Islands , nemathybomes , northernmost distribution limit , Pacific Ocean , Phylogeny , taxonomy

Contributed by

Pensoft Publishers

Language

English

Published by

Sofia, Bulgaria Pensoft Publishers

Identifiers

DOI: https://doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.1076.69025

 

Abstract

Edwardsianthus England, 1987 is a genus of Edwardsiidae, a family of burrowing and worm-like sea anemones characterized by lacking four mesenteries in the first cycle and containing only one type of nematocysts in nemathybomes. Until now, this genus has accommodated only two species since its establishment and has been recorded only from Indo-West Pacific regions. In this study, six species are reported from Japan: two are previously known species, E. pudicus (Klunzinger, 1877) and E. gilbertensis (Carlgren, 1931); four are new species, E. carbunculussp. nov., E. sapphirussp. nov., E. smaragdussp. nov., and E. amethystussp. nov. Based on these results, the diagnostic features of the genus are revised.