The Spionidae (Polychaeta) from southeastern Australia with a revision of the genera of the family

The Spionidae of southeastern Australia are described.Intertidal and subtidal collections come mostly from Victoria, New South Wales and southern Queensland.A few records from West Australia, South Australia, Tasmania and the Great Barrier Reef (Queensland) are also included.A total of 68 species in 19 genera have been identified.These include 4 new genera and 43 new species, with new synonyms and generic emendations also proposed.The genera with pointed prostomia include Scolelepis (9 species, 8 being new), Aonides (1 species) and Dispio (1 new species).Australospio trifida gen.et.sp.nov. is a unique spionid with both a distally pointed prostomium and lateral prostomial horns.The genera with frontal or lateral prostomial horns include Malacoceros (3 species, 2 being new), Rhynchospio (2 new species) and Scolecolepides (1 new species).The definition of Rhynchospio is expanded to include those species with branchiae free from dorsal lamellae.Laonice includes 3 new species, with 1 being a simultaneous hermaphrodite.Spiophanes includes 3 species, Spio with 3 species (2 being new) and Microspio with 1 new species.The genera of the Prionospio-compXex are reviewed and revised to include: Parapriono- spio (1 species), Orthoprionospio gen.nov.(1 new species), Streblospio (not represented) and Prionospio (9 species, 5 being new).A generic revision of the Poly dora-comp\ex is presented with 6 genera recognized: Boccardia (3 species), Carazziella gen.nov.(4 new species), Polydora (15 species, 8 being new), Boccardiella gen.nov.(2 species, 1 being new), Tripolydora (not represented) and Pseu- dopolydora (5 species, 2 being new).Polydorella is synonymized with Pseudopolydora.Approximately I of the species reported herein are endemic to Australia; the remainder are species with more cosmopolitan distributions.We consider it to be increasingly difficult to 6a.Hooded hooks bidentate (Fig. 3d-e); maintain 2 subgencric or generic (see Fauparapodia and branchiae of middle chald, 1 977a) categories based on such tenuous and posterior setigers vesiculate (Fig. and variable characteristics.Although we re-3c) S. phyllobranchia gret lumping such a large group of species b.Hooded hooks multidentate (Fig. under one genus, we believe it to be the better 4h; 5c); parapodia and branchiae not course, pending a re-evaluation of the taxo- vesiculate 7 nomic characteristics of Scolelepis.A similar n n n , t • , , position was adopted by Light (1977).^?™" c > e P^norfy elevated mo fo- The reader is referred to Pettibone (1963) i'°% ^^"JF?n™! and Foster (1971) for historical and revision- S^JS'SSS T A t ary clarification of the genus Scolelepis, and l^l^t £ °> i^l r for lists and keys to the tpecies.Eighteen spe- h %» £? 3t tipS Fl g ' f C " d) , 5 " °?*** cies are listed as valid by Pettibone (1 963).Wu b ' £™f .PJ^S < m ' and Chen (1964), Hartmann-Schroder (1965), PO^ed not fohose (Fig. 5a-b); su- Foster (1971), Bcllan and Lagardere (1971 P en °r dorsal capillary setae with Gibbs (1971); (1972), and Day (1973) have dc- T^J^K^t T I Spm°US scribed additional species.In our study, we Jff/ 1 f (Flg ; **** branchiae corn- have identified 9 species belonging to Scdlele- pletely fuS ° d t0 d°rSal ,araeIIae S ' towra pis, of which 8 are new to science.^a.Posterior notopodia with acicular spines (Fig. 8g) in addition to capil- KEY TO SPECIES OF SCOLELEPIS FROM lary setae; area posterior to caruncle southeastern Australia with nuchal papilla and raised rec- 1 a.Notosetae present on setiger 1 2 tangular patch (Fig. 7 a-b) S. viridis b.Notosetae absent from setiger 1 5 8b .Posterior notopodia without acicular 2a.Caruncle posteriorly free from dorsum 3 spines, with capillary setae only; car- b.Caruncle attached to dorsum 4 uncle with rounded lobe; nuchal pa- 3a.Setiger 1 with notopodial lamella in P 11 . 1 * located posterior to caruncle presetal position (Fig. 6a-b); hooded ( F' §-9 a-b) S. victoriensis hooks multidentate, beginning in c ....... .neuropodia of setiger 15-90 (Fig Scolelepis Iamelhcincta sp.nov.6g-f) S. precirriseta (Figure 1) b.Setiger 1 with notopodial lamella in Material examined: QUEENSLAND.Heron Island, DOStsetal nositinn CFio ?iV hnnApA sandy shore -NE of is1and > mid-low tide levels (1 EvEw ° f ?, f I ' specimen.AM W13000).