From: <color><param>0000,0000,8000</param>Toril Loennechen Moen <<tolomo at nvg.ntnu.no></color>
<bold>Subject: <color><param>0000,0000,8000</param>Re: Hydroides identification</bold></color>
Dear Geoff and everybody,
As I'm (hopefully) about to start my doctoral studies on serpulids being
introduced to new areas via fouling and ballast water (<italic>Ficopomatus
enigmaticus</italic> and the <italic>Hydroides</italic>-species), your find was very interesting.
To my knowledge, the only fouling species of <italic>Hydroides</italic> are <italic>H. ezoensis,
H. elegans, and H. dianthus</italic>. Both <italic>H. ezoensis</italic> and <italic>H. elegans</italic> have a
central tooth in the operculum, and <italic>H. elegans</italic> has multiple lateral spinules
on 7-21 spines, while <italic>H. ezoensis</italic> has 5-8 spinules pointing inwards on 20-
35 spines. <italic>H. dianthus</italic> has no central tooth and 8-13 spines of dissimilar
length pointing to one side, the spines have reportedly no lateral teeth. The
length of these species are: <italic>H. ezoensis</italic> ~45 mm, <italic>H. elegans</italic> ~20 mm, <italic>H.
dianthus</italic> ~40 mm. All have bayonet setae.
As far as I can tell from the pictures and the description, none of these
species is consistent with your specimen but perhaps <italic>H. dianthus</italic> is the
"closest one"?
(The distribution of the species:
<italic>H. dianthus</italic>: East coast of North-America, the Mediterranean, Spain,
France, UK (Southampton). <italic>H. ezoensis</italic>: UK (Southampton, Portsmouth,
Isle of Wight), east coast of China, Japan. <italic>H. elegans</italic>: Tropical and
subtropical waters.)
Like Geoff, I'm very interested to hear what others have to say about this
worm. I'm also wondering what kind of boat the worm was found attached to
and whether the boat is permanently situated around New Zealand or
trafficking a larger part of the world? (I'm curious whether this could be (at
least to me) a new ship-fouling serpulid, or perhaps an introduction to a
new area.)
If anybody has knowledge of other ship-fouling <italic>Hydroides</italic>-species than the
ones mentioned I'll be happy to know about them!
Best regards,
Toril
----------
Toril Loennechen Moen
Norwegian University of Science and Technology
Museum of Natural History and Archaeology
Department of Natural History
Erling Skakkes gate 47a
N-7491 TRONDHEIM
NORWAY
phone: +47 7359 2287
fax: +47 7359 2295
e-mail: tolomo at nvg.ntnu.no
<nofill>
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