Pilargis pacifica Uschakov, 1955

Salazar-Vallejo, Sergio I. & Harris, Leslie H., 2006, Revision of Pilargis de Saint-Joseph, 1899 (Annelida, Polychaeta, Pilargidae), Journal of Natural History 40 (3 - 4), pp. 119-159 : 147-148

Pilargis pacifica Uschakov, 1955 n. stat.

Pilargis υerrucosa pacifica Zachs 1933, p 128 , nomen nudum.

Pilargis υerrucosa pacifica Uschakov 1965, p 180 –181 (Russian original 1955, p 201), Figure 60A–C 2.

Pilargis berkeleyi Buzhinskaja 1980, p 43 –45, Figure 1 E–G (non Monro, 1933).

Pilargis berkeleyae Buzhinkaja and Britayev 1994, p 95 –97, Figure 4 A–D (non Monro, 1933).

Description (translated and modified from Buzhinskaja and Britayeυ 1994)

Holotype of P. υ. pacifica drab yellow, densely verrucose, including prostomium, palps, and cirri; it is 82 mm long, 2.5 mm wide including parapodia , ca. 350 segments.

Prostomium divided in three parts: two lateral lobes and one small triangular lobe. Small antennae are attached to the distal ends of the paired lobes. Palps fused to each other, separated medially for less than half their length; palpophore massive, palpostyle small. Lateral pigmented spots visible in prostomium. Tentacular segment larger than following segments, ciliated areas on its dorsal posterior part. Tentacular cirri similar in length, ventral ones slightly thinner. First pair of dorsal cirri longer than the rest.

Parapodia with dorsal side covered by large glandular areas, each with small dark pigment cells. Dorsal cirri about twice as wide as cirrostyle. All setae bidentate, shaft with row of teeth; bidentate tips in longer setae only seen under high magnification. Anal cirri lost. Living worms from Vostok Bay with pink spotty body; mature male greenish with parapodial bases greenish yellow spots. Preserved specimens with small brown spots especially dorsally, prostomium, palps, and tentacular segment spotty. One specimen from Vostok Bay with two anal cirri.

Remarks

With specimens from Northern Japan, Zachs (1933) introduced the new name as a subspecies. He gave as its distinguishing feature the lack of furcate setae that had been repeatedly included for the stem species ( Fauvel 1920, 1923, 1934, 1936). As stated above, these setae are not present in the genus, so their differences have to be revised. Further, Pilargis υerrucosa pacifica Zachs, 1933 , is a nomen nudum after ICZN Art. 13 (ICZN 1999), and thus unavailable. The use by Uschakov in 1955 ( Uschakov 1965) implies that it should be cited as Pilargis υerrucosa pacifica Uschakov, 1955 (ICZN Art. 50.1). However, he failed to indicate the re-establishment of the name, or if he had used the same type materials.

Pilargis pacifica Uschakov, 1955 n. stat. differs from P. υerrucosa by having foliose tentacular and dorsal cirri and smaller verrucae over the body, while P. υerrucosa has blunt tentacular and dorsal cirri, and larger verrucae over the body. These differences are regarded as sufficient to change its rank.

Buzhinskaja (1980, p 43) recorded P. berkeleyae for the Japan Sea; she overlooked the previous papers ( Zachs 1933; Uschakov 1965), which were using P. υ. pacifica . Later, Buzhinskaja and Britayev (1994, p 95) found in the Vostok Bay what they regarded as the same species; they redescribed the type material of P. υ. pacifica available in St Petersburg, and concluded that it was a junior synonym of P. berkeleyae . They regarded Zachs’ name as a junior synonym because his paper was published after Monro’s and because they found no differences after comparing it with the redescription by Hartman (1947). By comparing those illustrations, however, there are several differences between these two species: P. pacifica has a large tentacular segment, as wide as setiger 1, while in P. berkeleyae it is narrower than setiger 1; the dorsal cirri in P. pacifica have cirrostyles slightly thinner than cirrophores, while they are markedly thinner in P. berkeleyae ; and in P. pacifica setal lobes are elongate triangular, while they are short truncate in P. berkeleyae . Therefore, they cannot be synonyms.

In fact, after the available morphological and ecological information available ( Imajima 1987; Britayev 1993), there may be more than one species in the Northwestern Pacific. The relationships among these species have to be based on the revision of materials which were not available to us.

Figures

Figure 1. Pilargis υerrucosa de Saint-Joseph, syntype MNHN-A278, female. (A) Anterior end in dorsal view; (B) posterior end in ventral view; (C) median setiger in anterior view; (D) posterior setiger in anterior view. Scale bars: 500 mm (A, B); 270 mm (C, D).

Figure 4. (A–D) Pilargis angeli n. sp. UANL-1474: (A) anterior end in dorsal view (verrucae are mostly restricted to parapodia); (B) right setiger 10 in anterior view; (C) median setiger in anterior view; (D) right setiger 60 in anterior view. (E) Pilargis sp. juvenile BLM 85401 BF1, complete organism in dorsal view, slightly distorted by cover slip. Scale bars: 225 mm (A); 120 mm (B–D); 500 mm (E).