First record of genus Coenocyathus Milne Edwards & Haime, 1848 (Cnidaria: Anthozoa: Scleratinia) in the Bay of Biscay (northeastern Atlantic)

Abstract

During the Fauna II expedition by the National Museum of Natural History (Madrid, Spain), two specimens of Coenocyathus cylindricus Milne Edwards & Haime, 1848 (Cnidaria: Scleractinia) were collected off Ribadeo (Lugo, Spain), in the Bay of Biscay, at a depth of 114-116 m. This is an uncommon coral, cited only once before in the Iberian Peninsula, in the south of Portugal. The genus Coenocyathus Milne Edwards & Haime, 1848 has been, thus, first recorded in the Bay of Biscay, being also the northernmost occurrence in the Eastern Atlantic. In this paper, the specimens are described and depicted, and the geographic and bathymetric distributions of the species are updated. With this new record, there are 46 scleractinian species recorded up to now in the southern sector of the Bay of Biscay, which is herein considered of high species richness within the northeastern Atlantic fauna. Forty-two out of this 46 species are deep-sea corals living below than 50 m deep.