Villogorgia ceylonensis

Villogorgia ceylonensis (Thomson & Henderson, 1905)

Echinomuricea ceylonensis Thomson & Henderson, 1905: 292, pl. 6, fig. 6 (West of Periya Paar).

Opinion: This species does occur in the region.

Justification:

These Indian records seem to be either invalid or unconfirmable: Thomson & Simpson 1909: 230; Thomas et al. 1998: 162, fig. 1E, 1–4 (SW coast); Fernando 2011: 54, pl. 31, fig. 1–1e (SE coast); Fernando et al. 2017: 115, pl. 52, fig. 1–1e (SW coast).

Literature analysis: This species was originally described from Sri Lanka as Echinomuricea ceylonensis with only a colony illustration. Thomson & Simpson (1909) reassigned the species to the genus Acamptogorgia and described a colony without giving a location or presenting any illustrations. Oddly they stated that the coenchyme was white but also that the colony was dark red. Thomson & Russell (1910: 152) retained the reassignment with specimens from the Chagos Archipelago “that seem to be identical” with the original material, but provided no illustrations. Kükenthal (1924) transferred the species to the genus Perisceles. Both Acamptogorgia and Perisceles are considered synonyms of Villogorgia, and that name was used for Madagascan material identified by TixierDurivault (1966: 412), despite the sclerites of the original material never having been described, meaning the species is unrecognisable.

Thomas et al. (1998) described a specimen under the name Perisceles ceylonensis with sclerite illustrations, but erroneously cited Acanthogorgia ceylonensis of Thomson & Simpson (1909) as a synonym instead of Acamptogorgia ceylonensis. The publications of Fernando (2011) and Fernando et al. (2017) both describe the same specimen under the name Villogorgia ceylonensis and cite Villogorgia ceylonensis Bayer, 1981 (p. 927) as a synonym. But in that key Bayer simply included the 3 Villogorgia synonyms, Acamptogorgia, Brandella and Perisceles, and illustrated a typical thornscale from each in fig. 50 with no reference to any species. Because the species is unidentifiable, it is impossible to say if the Indian material described by all of these authors is conspecific with that of Thomson & Henderson (1905).