Redescription of the deep-sea benthic ctenophore genus Tjalfiella from the North Atlantic (Class Tentaculata, Order Platyctenida, Family Tjalfiellidae)

Abstract

Some of the most fascinating and poorly known animals on this planet are comb jellies of the phylum Ctenophora. About one-quarter of ctenophore richness is encompassed by the benthic species of the order Platyctenida, nearly all known from shallow waters. In this work, we integrate several systematic methods to elucidate an enigmatic genus, Tjalfiella, known previously only from deep waters near the western coastline of Greenland in the North Atlantic. For the first time, we employ microCT on museum specimens—one nearly 100 years old from the type locality of the only known species of the genus, T. tristoma—of extant ctenophores to visualize and compare their anatomy. With these data, we integrate in situ videography and genetic sequence data derived from newly collected deep sea specimens observed via NOAA Ship Okeanos Explorer in 2018 and 2022 at two distant localities in the North Atlantic, near North Carolina, USA, and the Azores, Portugal. The genetic data indicate that the newly collected specimens represent closely related but distinct species of Tjalfiella. However, neither can be named at this time because neither one could be definitively differentiated from T. tristoma, given that microCT and in situ imagery reveal striking morphological similarities and only variation in color and host preference. Despite the lack of new species descriptions, this work characterizes both the morphology and genetics of the benthic ctenophore genus Tjalfiella and specimens representing species within it, advancing our understanding of a rarely observed component of the deep-sea fauna.