Trypanosyllis (Trypanobia) Imajima and Hartman, 1964

Martín, Guillermo San, Hutchings, Pat & Aguado, María Teresa, 2010, Syllinae (Polychaeta: Syllidae) from Australia. Part 3. Genera Alcyonosyllis, Genus A, Parahaplosyllis, and Trypanosyllis (Trypanobia), Zootaxa 2493, pp. 35-48 : 42-43

Genus Trypanosyllis (Trypanobia) Imajima and Hartman, 1964

Trypanosyllis (Trypanobia) Imajima and Hartman, 1964: 128 .

Diagnosis. Mid- to large-sized body, ribbon-like, strongly dorso-ventrally flattened, with numerous short segments. Prostomium with four eyes and three antennae. Palps completely separate, ventrally directed. Two pairs of tentacular cirri. Antennae, tentacular and dorsal cirri distinctly articulated. Pharynx with trepan.

Chaetae all thick, simple; simple capillary chaetae absent.

Type-species. Haplosyllis depressa Augener, 1913 , herein designated.

Remarks. Trypanobia was erected as a subgenus of Trypanosyllis Claparède, 1864 for the species having only simple chaetae ( Imajima & Hartman, 1964) and additionally lacking simple capillary chaetae and having palps ventrally directed, difficult to see in dorsal view. Only one species, Trypanosyllis inglei Perkins, 1981 has ventral simple capillary chaetae and some simple chaetae, formed by fusion of shaft and blade only present on the anterior-most segments ( Perkins, 1981). Similar differences occur between Syllis and Haplosyllis and Trypanobia seems to be a well-defined group, likely a different genus restricted to the Indo- Pacific Ocean. However, at this stage we prefer to retain it as a subgenus of Trypanosyllis since there are few taxa involved and additional information is required. Up to now, only three species belong to Trypanobia : T. (T.) depressa ( Augener, 1913) from Australia and Japan, T. (T.) asterobia Okada, 1933 , from Japan ( Imajima, 1966), and Trypanobia (T.) foliosa Imajima, 2003 , also from Japan and perhaps also Australia (see below). Fauvel (1933) described a variety of T. depressa from Suez Channel ( Syllis (Haplosyllis) depressa var. dollfussi ); examination of type (Holotype POLY TYPE MNHN 654) reveals some differences in the shape of chaetae and this may represent another species of the same genus, also according Lattig et al. (2009).

The Australian species of Trypanosyllis (Trypanosyllis) was described by San Martín et al. (2008b).