A taxonomic revision of the genus Haplosyllis Langerhans, 1887 (Polychaeta: Syllidae: Syllinae)
Author
Lattig, Patricia
Author
Martin, Daniel
text
Zootaxa
2009
2220
1
40
journal article
10.5281/zenodo.190035
997c03d9-26dd-417b-aff2-c232907ab19c
1175-5326
190035
Genus
Haplosyllis
Langerhans, 1879
Haplosyllis
Langerhans, 1879: 527
Trypanosyllis
(
Trypanoseta
)
Imajima and Hartman, 1964
: 129
.
Geminosyllis
Imajima, 1966
: 233
.—
Kudenov & Harris, 1995
: 71
, fig. 1.26.—
Lattig
et al
. 2007
: 561
–562.
Trypanoseta
Aguado
et al.
2008
: 544
Type
species.
Syllis spongicola
Grube, 1855
Diagnosis.
Body cylindrical, reaching large size, from
0.1 mm
to
60 mm
length. Prostomium with four eyes, sometimes with anterior ocular spots. Three long antennae. Palps robust, triangular, fused at bases. Two pairs of tentacular cirri. Antennae, dorsal cirri and tentacular cirri distinctly moniliform, some species with posterior cirri apparently smooth (but corresponding to a single small article). Ventral cirri digitiform, gradually decreasing in size from anterior to posterior end. Pharynx with one tooth surrounded by 9–12 soft papillae. Trepan, if present, with approximately ten teeth. Chaetae all simple, variable in number, 1–3 or up to 12 per parapodia. Capillary chaetae absent. Schizogamic reproduction by means of a single sexual stolon for each parental individual (scissiparity).
Remarks
.
Haplosyllis
was initially defined as having a single pharyngeal tooth (see
Lattig
et al
. 2007
) and the presence of an additional pharyngeal trepan was the main character to distinguish
Haplosyllis
from
Trypanoseta
(
Imajima 1966
). The dissection and SEM observations of many specimens of
H. spongicola
(sensu
Lattig
et al
. 2007
)
revealed in many cases the presence of a trepan (
Fig. 17
A–C). As
H. spongicola
is the
type
species of
Haplosyllis
, the diagnosis of the genus must be modified, and
Trypanoseta
is no longer considered valid. Besides,
Aguado
et al
. (2007)
showed a clear phylogenetic difference between
Haplosyllis
and
Trypanoseta
based on molecular data. These authors used two specimens of
H. spongicola
from the Mediterranean, and other two identified as
Haplosyllis
sp. and
T..
ohma
. However, the former were from
Australia
(where the presence of
Haplosyllis spongicola
is doubtful), while the latter species was recorded from St. Juan (Washington,
U.S.A.
), a location distant from
Japan
, the
Type
Locality of
T. ohma
. Taking into account our observations on the morphology of the respective
type
species, we suggest that the results of
Aguado
et al
. (2007)
better reflect the large genetic differences that may occur within
Haplosyllis
rather than supporting
Trypanoseta
as a distinct genus. More species need to be analysed genetically in order to obtain reliable results for this genus, both to define intra-generic differences and to define its phylogenetic position within the
Syllidae
.