Three new species of bacterivorous Chrysopetalidae and Microphthalmidae (Annelida) inhabiting a whale fall off eastern Australia Author Watson, Charlotte Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory, Box 4646, Darwin, NT 0801, Australia Author Gunton, Laetitia M. School of the Environment and Life Sciences, University of Portsmouth, King Henry Building, Portsmouth PO 1 2 DY, United Kingdom Author Kupriyanova, Elena K. Australian Museum Research Institute, Australian Museum, 1 William Street, Sydney, NSW 2010, Australia & School of Natural Sciences, Macquarie University, Sydney, NSW 2109, Australia text Records of the Australian Museum 2024 2024-11-27 76 5 249 264 https://doi.org/10.3853/j.2201-4349.76.2024.1905 journal article 10.3853/j.2201-4349.76.2024.1905 2201-4349 14668975 Pleijelius Salazar-Vallejo & Orensanz, 2006 Type species. Pleijelius longae Salazar-Vallejo & Orensanz, 2006 . Diagnosis. Very small bodied. Prostomium with finger-like median antenna positioned mid-dorsum at posterior edge of prostomium at the level of segment I; pair of lateral antennae and palps positioned antero- ventrally. Achaetous segments I-III each with two pairs of dorsal and ventral tentacular cirri, total 6 cirri. Notochaetal fascicle moderately to abundantly developed: simple notochaetae with one or two rows of subdistal serrations. Neurochaetae may include hooked acicula spines; compound falcigerous fascicle may include simple neurochaetae. Pygidium with well-developed pair of dorso-lateral anal cirri and a ventral medial anal cirrus. Remarks. Pleijelius longae , until now the only species in the genus, has been found on experimental wood panels in the abyss off Massachusetts (Salazar-Villejo & Orensanz, 2006), but these animals appear to be common in wood-fall and whale-fall communities. For example, Pleijelius cf. longae was reported forming a part of the xalophagid bivalve wood-fall community at 1,500 –3,300 m in the SW Atlantic (Saeedi et al. , 2019; Shimabukuro et al ., 2020). Undescribed species of Pleijelius have been reported from whale-fall communities in the SW Atlantic (Sumida et al ., 2016).