Two new bamboo corals species (Octocorallia: Keratoisididae) from the seamounts of slow-spreading Central Indian Ridge

Abstract

Bamboo corals are a subclass of cnidarian anthozoans in the family Keratoisididae Gray, 1870. Most of the bamboo coral species are known from the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans. This study reports on two new species of bamboo corals (Dokidisis krishanani sp. Nov. and Adinisis oblonga sp. Nov.) from the Central Indian Ridge (CIR) system seamounts, using morphological and genetic (MutS) data to compare with existing species. They are distributed globally in shallow and deep waters, and having complex body structure. It is part of a baseline environmental and benthic biological evaluation. All the data will help identify the long-term effects of massive sulphide mining in the Indian Ocean. The two novel species were used to collect information on distinguishing morphological characteristics that vary significantly from the sibling species. Considering the recently published literature, the discovery of new biological species, and sampling efforts, we hypothesise that many more octocoral species are yet to be discovered, particularly in the seamount of CIR and SWIR regions.