Phyllodesmium lizardense Burghardt, Schrödl & Wägele, 2008

Location: Yamakawa Beach, Okinawa Island (Motobu and Northern area), Okinawa, Japan
Date: 2011/02/19
Length: 20mm
Depth: 7.0m
Water temperature: 22.0℃

Description

A medium-sized Phyllodesmium reaching about 45 mm in body length (excluding cerata). The body — including oral tentacles, rhinophores and foot — is translucent white, and the right digestive glandular branch shows through as a distinct brown band, due to the symbiotic zooxanthellae it contains. Up to about 50 cerata are arranged in five mainly incomplete arched pads on each body side. The cerata are dorso-ventrally flattened and broadened in the upper half, with the surface covered in creamish pustules and a brownish reticulate pattern in the depressions between pustules. The cerata closely mimic the polyps of the host xeniid soft coral in colour and shape, providing very effective camouflage within the host colony.

Live zooxanthellae (Symbiodinium) are retained inside the digestive gland branches within the cerata, sustaining a solar-powered (photosymbiotic) lifestyle.

Distribution

Type locality: Casuarina Beach, Lizard Island, Northern Great Barrier Reef, Australia (~0.5 m depth, July 2005). At the time of description it was known only from two sites around Lizard Island (Casuarina Beach and Loomis Beach).

Etymology

The specific epithet is a toponym referring to the type locality, Lizard Island on the Great Barrier Reef. The original spelling lizardensis was later adjusted to the neuter form lizardense to agree with the genus.

Remarks

A specialist on octocorals of the family Xeniidae, whose polyps the cerata mimic in colour and shape. Shares the xeniid-feeding ecology with related solar-powered congeners such as Phyllodesmium jakobsenae, Phyllodesmium rudmani and Phyllodesmium lembehense.