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- The Renouxia files: the richness is out there!Publication . Gabriel, Daniela; Norris, James N.; Schmidt, William E.; Harris, D. J.; Fredericq, SuzanneABSTRACT: In 1989, a gelatinous red alga was reported for the Caribbean, to which no species name, genus, order or even family could be assigned. Renouxia antillana was finally described in 1995 and accomodated in a new order and family (Rhodogorgonales, Rhodogorgonaceae) along with Rhodogorgon ramosissima described six years earlier based on material from reefs in Belize. For more than 20 years, the genus has remained monotypic, with rare reports in the Caribbean and in the Indo-Pacific (from Malaysia to French Polynesia). Recent collections in Egypt resulted in the first record of Renouxia in the Red Sea. DNA sequence analyses indicate that the specimens belong to a new species. The cox1 pairwise distance among the Red Sea specimens is 0.0-0.2%, while the distance between these and the generitype is 7.5 -7.7%. This interspecific nucleotide diversity is as high as the diversity between R. antillana and Rhodenigma contortum (7.2-7.5%), the third species in the family. RbcL pairwise distances are also high (6.7% within Renouxia, and 9.1-9.6% between Renouxia and Rhodenigma), indicating the possibility that the new species belongs to a new genus. Morphological and anatomical studies are underway to formally describe the new taxon.