Alcyonosyllis Glasby and Watson, 2001

Martín, Guillermo San, Hutchings, Pat & Aguado, María Teresa, 2010, Syllinae (Polychaeta: Syllidae) from Australia. Part 3. Genera Alcyonosyllis, Genus A, Parahaplosyllis, and Trypanosyllis (Trypanobia), Zootaxa 2493, pp. 35-48 : 36

Genus Alcyonosyllis Glasby and Watson, 2001

Alcyonosyllis Glasby and Watson, 2001: 44 .

Diagnosis. Body long with numerous chaetigers. Prostomium with two pairs of eyes, three antennae; palps fused at bases. Two pairs of tentacular cirri. Antennae, tentacular cirri, and dorsal cirri smooth, unarticulated, becoming smooth towards posterior end. Dorsal cirri generally alternating in length. Cirrophores distinct. Ventral cirri present. Chaetal fascicles with simple hooked chaetae relatively slender, with long, thin tips and subdistal boss, unidentate or slightly bidentate. Simple capillary ventral chaetae appearing on posterior chaetigers. Pygidium with pair of long unarticulated cirri. Pharynx with anterior mid-dorsal tooth and 10 terminal papillae. Reproduction by schizogamous scissiparity. Ventral development of stolon.

Remarks. According to Glasby and Aguado (2009), this genus consists of five species, all of them having simple chaetae only: A. phili, Glasby & Watson, 2001 ; A. glasbyi San Martín & Nishi, 2003 ; A. xaenicola (Hartmann-Schröder, 1993) ; A. bisetosa (Hartmann-Schröder, 1960) , and A. hinterkircheri Glasby & Aguado, 2009 . Three other species, Syllis onkylochaeta Hartmann-Schröder, 1991 , S. cirrita Lee and Rho, 1994 , and S. exiliformis Imajima, 2003 , partially agree with the generic diagnosis (see Hartmann-Schröder 1991b, Lee and Rho, 1994, and Imajima, 2003), but differ in having compound chaetae in some fascicles and weakly articulated dorsal cirri on some anterior segments. Syllis exiliformis was placed in Alcyonosyllis by Aguado et al. (2008), who proposed a modified generic diagnoses to include this species, however we consider that this species, as well as S. onkylochaeta and S. cirrita , are so poorly known that there systematic position are uncertain. Therefore, more information is required before deciding whether to include these three species within a revised Alcyonosyllis , or whether a new genus should be erected to accommodate these three species. In the meantime, we have decided to refer these three species to an unnamed genus (Genus A, see below) until more material becomes available for more detailed morphological and molecular studies. The genus Alcyonosyllis is known only from the Indo-Pacific, especially from Australia, Japan, Philippines and Indonesia.

Type-species. Alcyonosyllis phili Glasby & Watson, 2001 .