Lens and van Riemsdijk, 1908
Smooth-walled, ridgeless, laterally flattened, rounded nectophores. Anterior nectophore with deep hydroecium in basal half. Lateral radial canals of both nectophores are looped. Somatocyst long tube of varying thickness, part of which is swollen. For most species the eudoxid stage is unknown. The genus currently includes 5 species, 2 of which have been described only recently. The anterior nectophores of 3 of the species are very similar in basic form. The first species to be described was Clausophyes ovata (Keferstein and Ehlers, 1860), but Margulis (1988) pointed out that since Moser (1925) this name had been wrongly applied to another species. The name Clausophyes moserae has been established for this other species. Although this destabilises the nomenclature, the species in question have not been recorded very often, particularly Clausophyes ovata, and so this change is accepted here. A table comparing the characters of the 4 species found in the area under consideration is given by Pugh (1995).
Clausophyes galeata
Clausophyes laetmata
Clausophyes moserae
Clausophyes tropica