Molecular systematic studies of the anthozoan class Octocorallia have revealed widespread incongruence between phylogenetic relationships and taxonomic classification at all levels of the Linnean hierarchy. Among the soft coral taxa in order Malacalcyonacea, the family Alcyoniidae and its type genusAlcyoniumhave both been recognised to be highly polyphyletic. A recent family-level revision of Octocorallia established a number of new families for genera formerly considered to belong to Alcyoniidae, but revision ofAlcyoniumis not yet complete. Previous molecular studies have supported the placement ofAlcyonium verseveldti(Benayahu, 1982) in family Cladiellidae rather than Alcyoniidae, phylogenetically distinct from the other three genera in that family. Here we describe a new genus,Ofwegenumgen. nov.to accommodateO. verseveldticomb. nov.and three new species of that genus,O. coronalucissp. nov.,O. kloogisp. nov., andO. collisp. nov., bringing the total number of species in this genus to four.Ofwegenumgen. nov.is a rarely encountered genus so far known from only a few locations spanning the Indian and western Pacific Oceans. We present the morphological characters of each species and use molecular data from both DNA barcoding and target-enrichment of conserved elements to explore species boundaries and phylogenetic relationships within the genus.
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This content will become publicly available on March 18, 2026
A new genus and species of feather duster worm (Annelida, Sabellidae) from shallow hydrocarbon seeps in the Gulf of Mexico
Sabellid species are known to have a broad depth distribution and have been reported from various deep-sea habitats, including chemosynthetic systems. Despite this presence, only two species have been identified from deep water chemosynthetic habitats and only one has been identified to species. When examining hydrocarbon seep systems along the Upper Louisiana Slope in the Gulf of Mexico, we observed an abundant sabellid species new to science. The characters for the collected specimens did not match any existing genus. The description for the new sabellid genus and species are presented, supported by external morphology and DNA sequence data (cytochrome c oxidase I).Seepicola viridiplumigen. nov., sp. nov. are gregarious, facultative hyper-epibionts within the examined methane seep communities and, seemingly, have a blend of morphological features of the generaPerkinsianaandPseudopotamilla. Specimens also have several distinctive characters including the presence of a pair of peristomial chambers between the ventral lappets and parallel lamellae and the short, button-like shape of the radiolar tips. Abundance estimates forS. viridiplumigen. nov., sp. nov. within the seep habitats are also presented.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1851383
- PAR ID:
- 10628014
- Publisher / Repository:
- Pensoft Publishers
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Biodiversity Data Journal
- Volume:
- 13
- ISSN:
- 1314-2836
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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