First Record of Lepidopora (Hydrozoa: Stylasteridae) from the North Pacific Ocean with Description of a New Species

Stylasterid corals from the North Pacific Ocean have been well studied and revised only in the Northeastern Temperate Region and in the tropical area around the Hawai‘i archipelago. However, few studies concerning stylasterids have been conducted in the Japanese region, and the number of species (including subspecies) known for the area is 26. Here we describe a new species of genus Lepidopora, L. iwasakii Pica & Puce, n. sp., from the deep sea off the Ryukyu Islands (Japan). The new species is characterized by having gastropores and dactylopores randomly arranged, reticulate-granular to linear-imbricate texture, presence of ring palisade, and short dactylopore spines without dactylostyles. Moreover, in the Northern Hemisphere in the Pacific Ocean the genus Lepidopora is not listed among the 11 genera recorded so far. Therefore, L. iwasakii represents the first record of this genus from Japan and the entire North Pacific Ocean.