Avagina marci Dörjes and Karling, 1975

Hooge, Matthew D. & Tyler, Seth, 2008, Acoela (Acoelomorpha) from Bocas del Toro, Panama, Zootaxa 1719, pp. 1-40 : 20

cf. Avagina marci Dörjes and Karling, 1975

Material. Living specimens in squeeze preparation; one set of 2-µm-thick serial sagittal sections of epoxyembedded specimen stained with toluidine blue.

Locality. Crawl Cay (9°14’37.8” N, 82°08’25.0” W), from fine-grained sand from 1 m water depth

Description. Mature specimens ~600 µm in length. Anterior and posterior ends rounded; posterior end club-shaped. Body without coloration in transmitted light. Rhabdoid glands not present. Mouth opening on ventral surface, anterior half of body.

Remarks. We tentatively identify this species as Avagina marci due to its possession of an isodiametridtype copulatory organ that is positioned mid-body and its apparent lack of a seminal bursa. An acoel that appeared similar to this species, but with a thinner body was common in several of our samples. In squeeze preparation this second species appeared to possess a seminal bursa; unfortunately, we were not able to obtain appropriately fixed material for examination in histological sections.