Husbandry
The deep-sea zoanthid Epizoanthus rinbou was landed in 2019, attached to a star turban snail (Guildfordia triumphans), from the training vessel Nagasaki-maru in the waters around the Goto and Danjo Islands near in Nagasaki, Japan using a trawl net.
The colony consists of 50 polyps connected by a thin whitish coenenchyma on the shell of the gastropod Guildfordia triumphans (Philippi, 1841).
Twenty-six polyps are attached to the dorsal side of the gastropod shell, 24 polyps to the ventral side of the shell.
No polyps were attached to the opening of the shell of G. triumphans.
Numerous and variably sized strongly encrusted sand particles were attached to the ectoderm, mesoglea of the polyps and coenchyma.
The polyps had a truncated and conical shape, the height of the living polyps ranged from 0.7 to 3.5 mm in height and 3.2 to 8.2 mm in diameter.
The living polyps were beige in colour, the tips of the tentacles were creamy white in colour.
Source:
A New Epizoanthus Species (Cnidaria: Anthozoa: Epizoanthidae) Associated with the Gastropod Mollusk Guildfordia triumphans from Southern Japan
Hiroki Kise1* and James Davis Reimer
Zoological Science 36: 259–265 (2019)
DOI: 10.2108/zs180182