The First Deep-Sea Stylasterid (Hydrozoa, Stylasteridae) of the Red Sea
Davide Maggioni,
Tullia I. Terraneo,
Giovanni Chimienti,
Fabio Marchese,
Daniela Pica,
Stephen D. Cairns,
Ameer A. Eweida,
Mattie Rodrigue,
Sam J. Purkis,
Francesca Benzoni
Affiliations
Davide Maggioni
Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences (DISAT), University of Milano-Bicocca, 20126 Milano, Italy
Tullia I. Terraneo
Red Sea Research Center, Division of Biological and Environmental Science and Engineering, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), Thuwal 23955, Saudi Arabia
Giovanni Chimienti
Department of Biology, University of Bari Aldo Moro, 70125 Bari, Italy
Fabio Marchese
Red Sea Research Center, Division of Biological and Environmental Science and Engineering, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), Thuwal 23955, Saudi Arabia
Daniela Pica
Consorzio Nazionale Interuniversitario per le Scienze del Mare (CoNISMa), 00196 Rome, Italy
Stephen D. Cairns
Department of Invertebrate Zoology, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC 20013, USA
Ameer A. Eweida
Marine Conservation Program, Neom, Saudi Arabia
Mattie Rodrigue
OceanX, 37 West 39th St., New York, NY 10018, USA
Sam J. Purkis
Department of Marine Geosciences, Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science, University of Miami, Miami, FL 33149, USA
Francesca Benzoni
Red Sea Research Center, Division of Biological and Environmental Science and Engineering, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), Thuwal 23955, Saudi Arabia
The Stylasteridae, commonly known as lace corals, is a family of colonial calcifying hydrozoans mostly inhabiting deep waters. Stylasterids show a cosmopolitan distribution but, in some areas, they are characterized by low species diversity, such as in the Red Sea, where only a shallow-water species has been reported so far. With this work, we provide the first evidence of a deep-sea stylasterid inhabiting the NEOM region in the northern Saudi Arabian Red Sea, at depths ranging between 166 and 492 m. Morphological examinations revealed that this species was previously unknown and belonging to the genus Stylaster. We, therefore, describe Stylaster tritoni sp. nov., representing the first record of the genus in the Red Sea. Lastly, the phylogenetic position of the species within the Stylasteridae was evaluated, revealing a close relationship with shallow-water Indo-Pacific and Western Atlantic Stylaster species and confirming the polyphyletic nature of the genus Stylaster.
