Three new species of the sea fan genus Leptogorgia (Octocorallia, Gorgoniidae) from the Gulf of California, Mexico.

Osvaldo Hernández,Jaime Gomez-Gutiérrez,Carlos Sánchez

doi:10.3897/zookeys.1017.50619

Abstract

Three new sea fan species of Leptogorgia were discovered during multiple scuba diving expeditions along the Gulf of California coast and islands. Leptogorgia iridissp. nov. is distributed in the southern region of the gulf (Mexican Province), inhabiting tropical rocky reefs of the Islas Marías Archipelago (Nayarit) and Bahía Banderas (Jalisco). This species has small colonies (< 7 cm height) with at least five clearly distinct chromotypes. Leptogorgia martirensissp. nov. was found exclusively on the rocky reefs of San Pedro Mártir and San Esteban Islands located in the northern region of the Gulf of California (northern region of Cortez Province). Leptogorgia enricisp. nov. is distributed from the south to the northern region of the Gulf of California (Cortez Province), inhabiting substrates of rocky reefs, sandy and pebbly sea floors. Comprehensive ecological diving expeditions to identify and classify octocorals in the Mexican Pacific (1995–2019) indicate that L. iridissp. nov. and L. martirensissp. nov. are likely to be micro-endemics and L. enricisp. nov. is endemic to the Gulf of California, which defines their currently known biogeographic distribution ranges.

Highlights

The family Gorgoniidae Lamouroux, 1812 includes mostly species of three genera in the eastern Pacific: Pacifigorgia Bayer, 1951 with anastomosed branching as the main diagnostic character, Eugorgia Verrill, 1868 with the presence of double disk capstans and Leptogorgia Milne Edward & Haime, 1857; which, in contrast to the previous two genera, does not have a single diagnostic genus morphological feature (Williams et al 2004; Breedy et al 2009)
Each species has a single colony chromotype (L. chilensis is orange and L. flexilis is red) and spindle sclerites are present in low proportions, with blunt tips rather than the long spindles with pointed tips observed in L. enrici sp. nov
We discovered three new species of the genus Leptogorgia in the Gulf of California, adding biodiversity information on the Eastern Pacific Ocean

Summary

Introduction

The family Gorgoniidae Lamouroux, 1812 includes mostly species of three genera in the eastern Pacific: Pacifigorgia Bayer, 1951 with anastomosed branching as the main diagnostic character, Eugorgia Verrill, 1868 with the presence of double disk capstans and Leptogorgia Milne Edward & Haime, 1857; which, in contrast to the previous two genera, does not have a single diagnostic genus morphological feature (Williams et al 2004; Breedy et al 2009). The lack of a single diagnostic taxonomic character in the genus Leptogorgia causes uncertainties in the taxonomic classification of species in this highly morphologically diverse genus, which currently includes 103 nominal species and seven species assigned as nomen dubium worldwide (Cordeiro et al 2020). This taxonomical problem is accentuated by multiple species having wide interspecific and intraspecific variability of morphotypes and chromotypes. We describe three new species of the genus Leptogorgia discovered in the Gulf of California during extensive ecological diving expeditions to identify and classify octocorals in the Mexican Pacific (1995–2019). These three new Leptogorgia species increase the total number of nominal Leptogorgia species to 33 for the American Pacific and 20 for the Mexican Pacific

Materials and methods

Findings

Discussion