Accepted by D. Gordon: 5 Aug. 2014; published: 28 Aug. 2014 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 ZOOTAXA ISSN 1175-5326 (print edition) ISSN 1175-5334 (online edition) Copyright © 2014 Magnolia Press Zootaxa 3857 (2): 151–182 www.mapress.com/zootaxa/ Article 151 http://dx.doi.org/10.11646/zootaxa.3857.2.1 http://zoobank.org/urn:lsid:zoobank.org:pub:96CEC1DB-94B8-4E38-88E1-CBA15871C2AE The identity of the invasive fouling bryozoan Watersipora subtorquata (d’Orbigny) and some other congeneric species LEANDRO M. VIEIRA 1,2 , MARY SPENCER JONES 3 & PAUL D. TAYLOR 4 1 Centro de Biologia Marinha, Universidade de São Paulo, São Sebastião, São Paulo, Brazil. E-mail: leandromanzoni@hotmail.com 2 Departamento de Zoologia, Centro de Ciências Biológicas, Universidade Federal de Pernambuco, Recife, Pernambuco, Brazil 3 Department of Life Sciences, Natural History Museum, London, UK. E-mail: m.spencer-jones@nhm.ac.uk 4 Department of Earth Sciences, Natural History Museum, London, UK. E-mail: p.taylor@nhm.ac.uk Abstract Watersipora subtorquata (d’Orbigny, 1852) has been widely reported as a fouling species from tropical to temperate wa- ters. The continued confusion over the correct name for this species led us to provide a redescription of d’Orbigny’s type of Cellepora subtorquata, and to make comparisons with other species of Watersipora. We show that the majority of spec- imens assigned to W. subovoidea (d’Orbigny, 1852) are morphologically distinct from the recently erected neotype of W. subovoidea; these specimens are here reidentified as Watersipora subtorquata. Other specimens previously assigned to W. subtorquata belong to W. subatra (Ortmann, 1890), described originally from Japan. Owing these inconsistences, we sug- gest setting aside the neotype of Watersipora subovoidea, which is based on Busk’s Lepralia cucullata and is not from the same locality as d’Orbigny’s type. Watersipora cucullata is redescribed and figured using Busk’s specimens; the species is known from the Mediterranean, including the Adriatic. Three other species—Watersipora atrofusca (Busk, 1856), Wa- tersipora aterrima (Ortmann, 1890) and Watersipora nigra (Canu & Bassler, 1930)—are also refigured. Watersipora ed- mondsoni Soule & Soule, 1975 is synonymised with W. subtorquata (d’Orbigny). Two new species are described, Watersipora mawatarii n. sp. from Japan and Watersipora souleorum n. sp. from the Azores, Cape Verde, Naples and In- dian Ocean. A key is given to the Recent species of Watersipora. Key words: Bryozoa, Cheilostomata, Watersiporidae, fouling species, invasive species, new species, taxonomy, type specimens Introduction Watersipora subtorquata (d’Orbigny, 1852) and Watersipora subovoidea (d’Orbigny, 1852) have been widely reported as fouling species in harbour areas, from tropical to temperate waters (Harmer 1957; Ryland 1974; Soule & Soule 1975; Ryland et al. 2009; Mackie et al. 2012). Ryland et al. (2009) noted that these species are frequently confused owing to the absence of a modern taxonomic account comparing W. subtorquata with W. subovoidea. D’Orbigny (1842) first reported Escharina torquata (Lamouroux, 1825) from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, later renaming the species Cellepora subtorquata d’Orbigny, 1852 because of homonymy (d’Orbigny 1852). Marcus (1937) described similarities between specimens from Santos and Rio de Janeiro that had been described by d’Orbigny, but adopted the name Watersipora cucullata (Busk, 1854), commonly used by contemporary taxonomists, for this Brazilian material. This name was still being used for specimens from São Paulo and Espírito Santo, Brazil (Marcus 1938, 1955) until Vieira et al. (2008) followed Taylor & Gordon (2002) in using the name W. subtorquata for the Brazilian specimens. Recently, Ramalho et al. (2011) compared the Rio de Janeiro specimens with recent descriptions given by Ryland et al. (2009) and applied the name W. subovoidea to Brazilian material, even though this species was originally introduced by d’Orbigny (1852) for material (Savigny 1817, pl. 8, fig. 1) from Egypt. These authors suggested that the specimens of Marcus (1937, 1938, 1955) required revision. Molecular studies investigating introduced populations of Watersipora (Mackie et al. 2006, 2012; Geller et al. 2008) have suggested that a common haplotype of W. subtorquata is found in southern Australia, New Zealand and