A review of the genus Primnoa (Octocorallia: Gorgonacea: Primnoidae), with the description of two new species

The four species and one additional variety of the genus Primnoa are revised, including descriptions and illustrations of all taxa. Two new species are described, Primnoa wingi from the Aleutian Islands and Primnoa notialis from the Subantarctic. Primnoa willeyi Hickson, 1915 is considered to be a variety of Primnoa pacifica Kinoshita, 1907. Primnoa is known to occur in the northern boreal Atlantic and Pacific and Subantarctic South Pacific at depths of 9–1029 m. It is particularly common throughout the Aleutian Islands, where it is often a bycatch of fishery trawling and sometimes made into jewelry.