New cribrilinidae (Bryozoa, cheilostomata) from the upper bathyal of the atlanto-mediterranean region

Abstract

The genus Puellina (Bryozoa, Cheilostomata, Cribrilinidae) appears to be particularly diverse in the upper bathyal of the Atlanto-Mediterranean province. Material from several regions (Azores, Canary Is., Ibero-Moroccan Bay, Straits of Gibraltar, Alboran Sea, NW Mediterranean Sea) includes four new species: P. denticulata sp. nov.; P. bathyalis sp. nov.; P. setiformis sp. nov.; P. pseudoradiata sp. nov. Two of these new species are polytypic, each of them presenting a Canarian population (P. setiformis setiformis ssp. nov., P. pseudoradiata canariensis ssp. nov.) diverging by constant microanatomical characters from a Mediterranean morphotype (P. setiformis romana ssp. nov., P. pseudoradiata pseudoradiata ssp. nov.). Puellina scripta (Reuss, 1848), first described from the Badenian (Mid-Miocene) of Europe, is recorded for the first time with certainty in Recent seas; it is confined to the upper slope throughout a Tethyan distribution (Gibraltar, Florida, Indian ocean, Pacific ocean). A deep-sea form of P. corbula Bishop and Househam, 1987, without avicularia, is distinguished in the NW Mediterranean sea and in Ibero-Moroccan stations affected by the deep Mediterranean water outflow where it coexists with the Mediterranean morphotype of P. pseudoradiata. The subdivision of the genus Puellina into three subgenera introduced by Bishop and Househam (1987) is followed and discussed, with remarks on the integrational gradient of the avicularium within this genus.