There’s a new soft coral on the books and it’s calledSinularia levi。这种新的手指皮革珊瑚从红海的浅水中传给了我们。
Sinularia leviwas described from a re-examination ofS. polydactyla，脉冲手指皮革珊瑚，可能是reef-building soft coralwe documented in the Solomon Islands.
You’d think that as well studied as the Red Sea is, all of its marine fauna, especially the immobile shallow water corals would be the low hanging fruit. This is somewhat the case but the widespreadSinularia polydactylahas been masking the existence ofSinularia levi, and other species in the genus.
Like nearly all soft corals, species level identification is determined mostly by microscopic examination of the internal sclerites. However, the official description ofSinularia levidoes characterize the colony as having “primary lobes [that] give off short knob-like lobules up to 5 mm long”. The newly mintedSinularia leviis described by van Ofwegen et. al. in the April 2016 volume of ZooKeys. [ZooKeys]
