The sea fan Thesea talismani is a rare deep sea species that was previously only known from the type material, namely one fragment of a colony designated as holotype, which was collected at 956 m depth off Larache (Morocco), and one colony 12 cm height designated as paratype, captured at 888 m off Cap Barbas (Western Sahara) (Grasshoff, 1986).
We report here the species for the first time after its original description, based on some specimens captured during the Spanish Maurit surveys and the German cruise MSM16j3, both carried out in waters off Mauritania by the years 2009 and 2010.
The samples were collected with a beam trawl and a rock dredge during the Spanish Maurit-0911 and Maurit -1011 surveys, and with a grab, a box corer and also directly with a Remote Operated Vehicle (ROV) during the German cruise MSM16jg. High resolution images, both photography and video recording were also obtained by the ROV.
The species was collected between 462 and 1090 m depth and seems associated to coral carbonate mounds and canyon habitats.
Our colonies mostly agree with the original description although some intraspeci.fic differences were observed. Most of the colonies match with the type material in size (10-15 cm) and in the ramification pattern with branches up to the second order. In addition, some simple, unbranched colonies were also collected, one of them reaching 30 cm with the distal part devoid of coenenchyme. Sclerite types are similar to those described for the type material although coenenchyme sclerites distribution and abundance vary between the different colonies.MAVA (Contract 12/87 AO C4/2012
