Ctenophores from the Oaxaca coast, including a checklist of species from the Pacific coast of Mexico

Abstract

Ctenophores are poorly known in the tropical eastern Pacific, including the southern coast of Mexico. Previous records of ctenophores along the Pacific coast have been provided mainly from northern waters. For the coast of Oaxaca state, their occurrence has only been mentioned before at phylum level. In this paper, we provide the first three records of ctenophores for the Oaxacan coast, which represent new records of Beroe forskalii and Bolinopsis vitrea as well as the first record of Ocyropsis maculata in the tropical eastern Pacific. Descriptions of these three species, as well as a checklist of the ctenophores from the west coast of Mexico are provided.

Records of ctenophores from South Africa

“…The images of Lyrocteis shown here were collected from about 70 m depth using a remotely operated vehicle as part of ongoing investigations into the ecosystem occupied by the coelacanth Latimeria chalumnae. The genera observed have widespread distributions in coastal areas (Table 1) and have been recorded off Australia (Gershwin, Zeidler & Davie, 2010), in the Mediterranean Sea (Madin, 1991;Shiganova & Malej, 2009;Deidun, 2011;Çinar et al, 2014), in the NW (Mayer, 1912) and NE Atlantic (Moro et al, 2013), around South America (Oliveira et al, 2007;Oliveira et al, 2016;Schiariti et al, 2020) and along the Pacific (Wrobel & Mills, 1998;Mills & Haddock, 2007;Ruiz-Escobar, Valadez-Vargas & Oliveira, 2015) and Atlantic (Mayer, 1912) coasts of North America. The taxa that would appear to be missing from regional waters include species of Lampea as well as Deiopea kaloktenota and Velamen parallelum, all of which are commonly reported from temperate and subtropical coastal environments elsewhere.…”

New records of gelatinous zooplankton from an oceanic island in the Eastern Tropical Pacific

“…palmata and Cestum sp. Eight species of ctenophores have been recorded in the Pacific coast of Mexico, where Ocyropsis maculate (Rang, 1828), Bolinopsis vitrea (L. Agassiz, 1860) and B. forskalii have been recently found in surface waters of the Oaxacan coast (Ruiz-Escobar et al ., 2015). Thalassocalyce inconstans is a unique ctenophore that presents a medusoid bell (Supplementary Figure B) without any discrete lobes (Madin & Harbison, 1978).…”

First records of two lobate comb-jellies (Ctenophora) from the Pakistani coast

“…Although the specimen photographed with the aid of scuba (Figure 3) presents a brownish pigmentation along the inner part of the lobes, it is quite different from the typical black spots generally attributed to O. maculata maculata, so it is closer to the O. maculata immaculata form (see Harbison and Miller 1986;Ruiz-Escobar et al 2015). The stranded specimens did not present the brownish pigmentation, but shared all other characteristics with the specimen photographed in Figure 3.…”

“…The stranded specimens did not present the brownish pigmentation, but shared all other characteristics with the specimen photographed in Figure 3. Ocyropsis maculata is believed to be a tropical and subtropical species, occurring in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans (Harbison et al 1978;Wrobel and Mills 2003;Mills and Haddock 2007;Ruiz-Escobar et al 2015;Oliveira et al in press). This is the first record of the species from the Arabian Sea.…”