>Greetings annelidans,
>>I have compiled / written a key for the polychaetes of coastal Virginia and
>Chesapeake Bay for my lab that may prove to be useful for others that
>need to identify polychaetes in this area. The web address is:
>www.vims.edu/~bart/
Dear Aaron (and others),
A brief check of your key, only the family Serpulidae, leads me to the
following remarks:
1) it may be useful for local workers. However, just south from your area
(S of Cape Hatteras) the serpulid fauna is a lot more diverse.
2) I would dearly love to see specimens of Filograna implexa. I know that
Hartman 1944 depicts a specimen (Verrill's, from New England and thus
slightly more northern than your area) with the spoonlike membraneous
opercula, but I still wonder whether they occur more southernly. So far I
have only seen non-operculate Salmacina from the E. USA.
3) a linguistical remark: opercula is plural, singular is operculum.
4) the opercular stalk in Hydroides is a modified radiole, not formed by
fused radii.
5) In order to avoid confusion with the probably still to be found but in my
opinion very likely present Ficopomatus enigmaticus* I would suggest
changing 1b. along the following lines: One operculum present, chitinous,
composed of a lower funnel with denticulate margin and an upper funnel
with a crown of spines; on a stalk without barbules, dorsal to about 20
radioles.
6) 2a. Operculum with some large spines of distal funnel .....
2b. Operculum with all large spines of distal funnel
7) I miss Protula diomedeae Benedict, J.E., 1887.- Descriptions of ten
species and one new genus of the Annelids from the dredgings of the U.S.
Fish Commission Steamer Albatross. Proc. U.S. Nat. Mus. 9: 547-553, pl.
20-25.
*8) You would not be the first to mistake a Hydroides for Ficopomatus or
vice versa. For instance Foster's Figs 3, a,b are not Ficopomatus
enigmaticus, but Hydroides elegans. Foster, N., 1972.- Freshwater
Polychaetes (Annelida) of North America. Biota of Freshw. Ecosystems,
Ident. Manual 4, viii + 15 pp., 5 figs.
wormly
dr. Harry A. ten Hove
Zoological Museum,
University of Amsterdam
POB 94766, 1090 GT AMSTERDAM
TEL. 3120 5256906
FAX. 3120 5255402
http://www.bio.uva.nl/zma/http://www-zma.bio.uva.nl/departments/Coel/coeleng/harry.html
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