Family CATOSTYLIDAE Gegenbaur, 1857

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Introduction

The family Catostylidae comprises six genera — Acromitoides Stiasny, 1921, Acromitus Light, 1914, Catostylus L. Agassiz, 1862, Crambione Maas, 1903, Crambionella Stiasny, 1921 and Leptobrachia Brandt, 1838. All, but Acromitus and Crambionella are found in Australian waters.

The group is easily identified by having pyramidal oral arms with a tapered cauliflower-like appearance. Acromitoides and Catostylus lack appendages on the oral arms; in Acromitoides, the anastomosing network of intracircular canals directly communicates with the ring canal and inter-rhopaliar canals only, whereas in Catostylus, the intracircular canals communicate with the ring canal, as well as with both the inter-rhopaliar canals and rhopaliar canals. The remaining genera have appendages emitting from the oral arms: in Acromitus, the oral arms typically have a terminal whip-like appendage, usually with whip-like filaments; in Crambione, the oral arms have clubs and whip-shaped filaments without terminal clubs; in Crambionella, the oral arms have short, terminal clubs, but lack whip-like filaments; in Leptobrachia (also sometimes called Leonura), the oral arms terminate in a naked, pointed end, and lack mouths in the mid-region of each arm.

Diagnosis

Inscapulatae with intracircular network of anastomosing canals communicating with the ring canal, but not always with the 16 radial canals; the eight rhopalar canals extending to the umbrella margin, the eight interrhopalar only to the ring canal; mouth-arms pyramidal.

Diagnosis References

Kramp, P.L. 1961. Synopsis of the medusae of the world. Journal of the Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom 40: 1-469 [367]

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