Family CALESCHARIDAE Cook & Bock, 2001

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• Calescharidae Cook, P.L. & Bock, P.E. 2001. Calescharidae, a new family for the Tertiary to Recent genera Caleschara MacGillivray and Tretosina Canu & Bassler (Bryozoa: Cheilostomata). Invertebrate Taxonomy 15: 527-550.

Introduction

The family Calescharidae was introduced by Cook & Bock (2001), for the genus Caleschara whose type species, C. denticulata (MacGillivray, 1869), is distributed widely in the shelf waters of southern Australia.

In this species, colonies are encrusting or form erect bilaminar sheets. Zooids contain an extensive cryptocyst, defining a semicircular opesia, and with lateral gaps which have been considered as opesiules
The 'opesiules' are formed by a median cryptocyst denticle which is evanescent in some species and virtually absent in others. It is present in the type species C. denticulata, figured from Victoria by MacGillivray (1880). The ovicells are totally unlike those of other Microporidae. They are very large, completely endozooidal, and the cavity protrudes into that of the distal zooid, which is modified to accommodate it. Spines and avicularia are absent, and Caleschara requires its own family. C. denticulata was illustrated from the southern coasts of Australia by Bock (1982) and Wass & Yoo (1983).

Diagnosis

Colony well calcified, encrusting to erect, adeoniform or fenestrate and bilaminar. Zooids with a large opesia, and a well developed cryptocyst, which may be produced proximally as a median process, forming paired 'opesiules', or as a denticle. Avicularia and spines absent. Brooding zooids large, with a dimorphic orifice, ovicell capsule endozooidal, very large, protruding into the cavity of the next distal zooid.

Diagnosis References

Cook, P.L. & Bock, P.E. 2001. Calescharidae, a new family for the Tertiary to Recent genera Caleschara MacGillivray and Tretosina Canu & Bassler (Bryozoa: Cheilostomata). Invertebrate Taxonomy 15: 527-550

General References

Bock, P.E. 1982. Bryozoans (Phylum Bryozoa). pp. 319-394 in Shepherd, S.A. & Thomas, I.M. (eds). Marine Invertebrates of Southern Australia. Handbook of the Flora and Fauna of South Australia Adelaide : Government Printer Part 1 491 pp.

Cook, P.L. & Bock, P.E. 2001. Calescharidae, a new family for the Tertiary to Recent genera Caleschara MacGillivray and Tretosina Canu & Bassler (Bryozoa: Cheilostomata). Invertebrate Taxonomy 15: 527-550

Macgillivray, P.H. 1869. Descriptions of some new genera and species of Australian Polyzoa; to which is added a list of species found in Victoria. Transactions and Proceedings of the Royal Society of Victoria 9: 126-148

Macgillivray, P.H. 1880. Polyzoa. 27-52, pls 45-49 in McCoy, F. (ed.). Prodromus of the Zoology of Victoria Decade 5. Melbourne : George Robertson Vol. 5.

Wass, R.E. & Yoo, J.J. 1983. Cheilostome Bryozoa from the Southern Australian Continental Shelf. Australian Journal of Marine and Freshwater Research 34: 303-354

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