New records of Pennatulacea (Anthozoa : Octocorallia) from the African Atlantic coast, with description of a new species and a zoogeographic analysis

A collection of pennatulaceans from ten cruises, acquired between 1982 and 1989 from off the western African coast comprises ca. 350 specimens of 13 s pecies. One of the cruise is from the Gulf of Guinea and eight from the Sou theast Atlantic. Fifty-four stations were sampled from depths of 91 1112 m. One previously undescribed species in the genus Stylatula is reported and described as new from samples collected from the Namibian continental shelf . Considering these collections, and previous records, the pennatulaceans i n the western African region show biogeographic affinities with three geogr aphic areas: West Africa (55.5% of the species), which comprises the Canary , Gulf of Guinea, and Benguela regions; the North Atlantic (3.7% of the spe cies), which represents the more widespread Atlantic taxa, and Cape Endemic (7.4% of the species), which comprises the southern African region.