Dear Annelid workers,
The recent posting by Igor Jirkov (Micronephthys) suggests that there is
confusion and disagreement with regard to the placement of the species
Aglaophamus neotenus Noyes.
I helped George Noyes with his work on this species when I was a
graduate student at the Darling Center back in the 1960's. At the
time, we thought the species might belong to the genus Micronephthys,
but later became convinced otherwise. I am thus very familiar with the
species "neotenus".
George went on to complete a study of the larvae and described those
along with the adults when he published the results of his Masters
Thesis in 1980.
Subsequently, Ohwada (1985: Pubs. Seto Mar. Biol. Lab. 30) referred the
species to the genus Nephtys.
Most recently, Hilbig (1994: Taxonomic Atlas of the Santa Maria Basin
vol. 4) determined that A. neotenus was a synonym of Nephtys cornuta
Berkeley and Berkeley, 1945, and that the species agreed very well with
the subspecies, N. cornuta franciscana Clark and Jones, 1955,
originally described from San Francisco Bay. Hilbig noted that N.
cornuta ranged from the eastern Pacific north to SE Alaska and also
occurred in Maine, the type locality for A. neotenus. Hilbig noted
that the characteristic bifid ventral antennae of N. cornuta also
occurred in the specimens from Maine, but at a lower perentage
suggesting to her that specimens from California and Maine represented
two ends of a range of variability. In other words, a kind of clinal
variation.
According to Dr. Jirkov, Aglaophamus neotenus is a valid species of
Micronephthys and he compares it with M. minuta. I do not see any
indication in Jirkov's abstract that he found bifid ventral antennae;
the distribution of branchiae and proboscideal papillae appear to be
same as described by Hilbig for N. cornuta.
There are thus two divergent views regarding the status of this
species:
(1) A synonym of Nephtys cornuta
(2) A valid species of Micronephthys
Does anyone have any thoughts on this situation?
Jim Blake
ENSR, 89 Water Street
Woods Hole, MA 02543
(jablake at ix.netcom.com)
