Grischenko Andrei V, Taylor Paul D, Mawatari Shunsuke F
Division of Biological Sciences, Graduate School of Science, Hokkaido University, Sapporo, Japan.
Zoolog Sci. 2002 Nov;19(11):1279-89. doi: 10.2108/zsj.19.1279.
Gontarella gigantea gen. et sp. nov. is described from two stations, one in the Sea of Okhotsk and the second on the Pacific side of the Small Kuril Arc. This membraniporiform anascan cheilostome bryozoan has very large zooids, the largest known among extant sheet-like encrusting anascans. Comparative data on similar sheet-like cheilostomes gathered from the literature shows that the new species represents a conspicuous outlier in size, with the surface area of the zooid being approximately twice that of the next largest species. Skeletal evidence, including the lack of ovicells, indicates that G. gigantea belongs within the malacostegan family Electridae. The gigantic ancestrula suggests that the species has a cyphonautes larva about 1 mm in maximum dimension.
巨型贡塔苔藓虫（Gontarella gigantea）新属新种是根据两个采集站的样本描述的，一个位于鄂霍次克海，另一个位于小千岛弧的太平洋一侧。这种膜孔状无柄唇口目苔藓虫具有非常大的个虫，是现存片状附着无柄苔藓虫中已知最大的。从文献中收集的关于类似片状唇口目的比较数据表明，新物种在大小方面是一个显著的异常值，个虫的表面积大约是第二大物种的两倍。骨骼证据，包括缺乏卵胞，表明巨型贡塔苔藓虫属于软甲苔藓虫科（Electridae）。巨大的原个虫表明该物种有一个最大尺寸约为1毫米的帽状幼虫。
