Echinomuricea sp. a (Figs. 13a, 14–15b) Material: RMNH Coel. 38772, three colonies, Farur Island, coll. S.A. Mohtarami, 2006. Description. The depicted colony (Fig. 13a) is 16 cm high and 12 cm wide, branching is bushy; branches are slender, 1–2 mm wide, and anastomoses are not present. The calyces are low and occur all around the branches. Many polyps lack sclerites; it seems most of these have simply fallen off. When present the collaret spindles are up to 0.30 mm long and the point sclerites up to 0.20 mm long. The tentacles have small rods, up to 0.10 mm long. The calyces have thornscales, up to 0.45 mm long, with smooth or slightly dentate spine (Fig. 14 a–b). The surface layer of the coenenchyme has spindles, many of them with side branches (Fig. 14 c), and irregular branched bodies (Fig. 15a); the largest up to 0.60 mm long. A few oddly shaped sclerites are also present, some looking like truncated thornscales, others like small crosses (Fig. 14 d). The interior has a few small radiates, up to 0.07 mm long (Fig. 15b). Colour. Alive, the colony was red with yellow polyps, preserved it is red. Most sclerites are reddish, the interior radiates pinkish to colourless. Variability. The two other colonies have a similar colony shape but are smaller.

Published as part of Namin, Samimi & Ofwegen, Van, 2009, Some shallow water octocorals (Coelenterata: Anthozoa) of the Persian Gulf, pp. 1-52 in Zootaxa 2058 on page 20, DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.186743