Two new species of Protocirrineris (Polychaeta: Cirratulidae) from Brazil

Abstract

Introduction: Brazil has more than 8 000 km of coastline but its marine invertebrates are still poorly known. The cirratulid polychaetes have been an especially neglected group because of its challenging taxonomy. Objective: to describe a new species of Protocirrineris. Methods: In a recent survey in two of the largest Brazilian bays, Todos os Santos Bay and Camamu Bay, 84 specimens of four morphotypes of the multitentaculate genus Protocirrineris were collected. Because of the lack of modified chaetae, the taxonomy of Protocirrineris is challenging and only two of these morphotypes are herein described as new species. Results: These two new species are characterized by having tentacular filaments in two groups over chaetigers 3-4 and first branchiae present from chaetiger 1. They differ from each other in relation to the nature of the achaetigerous region, posterior region, ultrastructure of capillary chaetae and methyl green staining pattern. Two incomplete specimens are also considered as Protocirrineris, and brief descriptions are given. Conclusions: The genus Protocirrineris is cited for the first time in Brazil. Four new morphotypes were found in two large estuaries of Brazil, and two new species are formally described.

Still Digging: Advances and Perspectives in the Study of the Diversity of Several Sedentarian Annelid Families

“…Other areas where cirratulids have recently been studied and new species described include the Caribbean Sea, Hawaii, Korea, North-East Atlantic, and South Africa [103][104][105][106]. In particular, the recent description of five new species of Protocirrineris from South Africa and South America is remarkable as it represents important progress in the study of a little-known genus in a poorly studied geographical area [97,107,108].…”

Los poliquetos como indicadores biológicos en Latinoamérica y el Caribe

“…Así se cimentó la creencia de la existencia de especies verdaderamente cosmopolitas en poliquetos y otros invertebrados marinos. Ese presunto cosmopolitismo fue luego reforzado por descripciones superficiales, malas o incompletas (Elías y Rivero 2008;Elías et al 2019a;Saracho Bottero et al 2019). Posteriormente, fue Wilson Jr. (1983) uno de los primeros en cuestionar el fenómeno del cosmopolitismo, pero otros investigadores comenzaron a cuestionar también este fenómeno (Mackie y Pleijel 1995).…”

“…Debido al "europeísmo", la gran mayoría de las especies fueron citadas como las mismas presentes en aguas europeas, dando lugar a la creencia de la existencia de alta cantidad de especies cosmopolitas y pocas endémicas. Una revisión del material de estas regiones está dando como resultado nuevas consideraciones sobre el endemismo en el Cono Sur (Elías et al 2017(Elías et al , 2019a(Elías et al , 2019bSaracho Bottero et al 2019).…”

Protocirrineris (Polychaeta:Cirratulidae) in South Africa and description of two new species

“…The twelve described species of Protocirrineris may be distinguished by the segmental origin, extent and number of feeding tentacles as well as the first appearance of branchiae (Table 1 in Elías, Saracho-Bottero & Magalhães (2019), in this volume). The origin of branchiae, also an important character, is usually variable, occurring generally in anterior chaetigers, but in some species are posterior (like in P. angelicolliatio and P. strandloperarum sp.…”