Volume 2

Zoological results based on material from New Britain, New Guinea, Loyalty islands and elsewhere / collected during the years 1895, 1896 and 1897 by Arthur Willey.

  • Arthur Willey
Date:
1898-1902
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Zoological results based on material from New Britain, New Guinea, Loyalty islands and elsewhere / collected during the years 1895, 1896 and 1897 by Arthur Willey. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    On the upper part of the stem and on the branches they are borne chiefly laterally and alternately. They measure '36 to -64 mm. in height, and ‘5 mm. in breadth. The terminal ones are usually large, measuring -92 mm. by 101 mm. at the base. They are smooth, like the rest of the coenenchyma, and divided into eight rays at the summit, which are folded over the retracted polyps. The spicules are double clubs and double spindles with irregular rings of tubercles and a bare zone in the centre. Some are pointed at the ends and some are rounded. There are a few double stars. The spicules are colourless. The pointed spicules measure T1 x '018 mm. Those with rounded ends measure ’08 x '036 mm. The double stars measure '046 x -018 mm. The colony is pale fawn in colour in spirit. When alive it was pure white. Habitat. Blanche Bay, New Britain. Depth, 50 fathoms. Previously recorded from the West Indies. It is a noteworthy point in geo- graphical distribution, that the same species of Verrucella should be found both in the West Indies and at a depth of 50 fathoms in Blanche Bay, New Britain. Commensal with this species of Verrucella is a large number of Anemones, belonging apparently to the tribe Hexactiniae, family Amphianthidae Hertwig, all the members of which are attached to Gorgonidae. The circular muscle, i.e. the sphincter, is mesogloeal and very powerful. It is not a Stephanactis, as there is no circular swelling dividing the animal into an upper and a lower section, and the tentacles are not numerous, but the animals are all in such a strong state of contraction that it is impossible to accurately tell their number or arrangement. It is not an Amphianthus, as the wall is not covered with papillae. It agrees most closely with Gephyra dornii, v. Koch; the two forms are of the same size, 1*5 mm. in diameter at the base and 1 to 1*5 mm. in height. But the tentacles are less numerous, seeming to be in two rows of 18. Von Koch describes a secretion of horny matter of which I see no trace in this form. Thus the specimens do not seem to belong to any of the three known genera of the Amphianthidae. The characters, as far as it is possible to make them out owing to the strongly contracted condition, are :— Amphianthidae with a firm, smooth wall and a strong circular muscle, mesogloeal in position; the tentacles1 are apparently in two rows of 18. There is no circular swelling. Provisionally the name of Peronanthus2 verrucellae might be given to these com- mensal anemones. 1 The tentacles, if they can be so called, were quite obscure in the fresh condition and the Anthozooid bore an external resemblance to a Scyphistoma. The colour was reddish yellow. [Ed.] 2 TTipbvr) a brooch, and avffos a flower. 29—2
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