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RESEARCH PRODUCT

Redescription of Bedotella armata from Biscay Bay, northern Spain, the type species of Bedotella Stechow, 1913 (Cnidaria, Hydrozoa, Lafoeidae), with comments on its taxonomic position

subject

description

The circalittoral and bathyal genus Bedotella, comprising a unique known species endemic to the North European Atlantic (Lusitanian Province), Bedotella armata (Pictet, C. & M. Bedot, 1900) is redescribed based on a specimen from the Bay of Biscay, North Spain. As the holotype of the species, originally described as Campanularia armata, is sterile and incomplete, the present re-description includes new data concerning its morphometry, including gonothecae, and cnidom, as well as all the literature. The diagnostic characters of Bedotella armata are the presence of globular nematothecae, the campanuliform hydrothecae, and flabelliform, gigantic gonothecae. We corroborate the hypotheses of affinities of Bedotella with hydroids of the Hebellinae, most possibly with the genus Halisiphonia.