Scott Jones wrote:
> I was wondering if any of you out there use this book to tackle Spionids. More
> to the point, do you use it to ID them outside of the San Francisco Bay area?
Hello Scott,
It is difficult to answer your question usefully without knowing why you are
asking. However taking it at face value and inferring a little here goes. I am
confident Light 1978 is still used as a resource by people working on
spionids, whether in California or not. It is an interesting book. However,
if you are identifying material from Florida (where you are, though you may be
looking at material from somewhere else) it is unlikely to be your best
primary guide. I do not know what that primary guide might be - perhaps there
isn't one, but (if we are still in Florida) the polychaete checklists of
Thomas Perkins would be a good start.
If we are talking of oldish but good for around the southeastern USA - try
Nancy Foster's work on Spionids. Also the 1984 set of vols 'Taxonomic guide to
the polychaetes of the northern Gulf of Mexico' has a spionid chapt by
Johnson. More recently the papers of Vivianne Solis-Weiss and her colleagues
might also be of relevance though offhand I am not sure if there is a spionid
one for the Mexican G of M coast.
Foster, N.M. (1971). Spionidae (Polychaeta) of the Gulf of Mexico and the
Caribbean Sea. Studies on the Fauna of Curacao and Other Caribbean Islands.
36(129): 1-183.
For a good overview of spionids of course you know already of:
Blake, J.A. (1996). Family Spionidae Grube, 1850. Including a Review of the
Genera and Species from California and a Revision of the Genus Polydora. In:
Blake, J.A.; Hilbig, B.; Scott, P.H. (eds). Taxonomic Atlas of the Benthic
Fauna of the Santa Maria Basin and Western Santa Barbara Channel. Volume 6.
The Annelida Part 3. Polychaeta: Orbiniidae to Cossuridae, pp. 81–223. Santa
Barbara Museum of Natural History, Santa Barbara.
Cheers,
--
Geoffrey B. Read, Ph.D. <g.read at niwa.co.nz>
National Institute of Water & Atmospheric Research
Wellington, NEW ZEALAND
