Chloeia ancora Frickhinger, 1916 Indeterminable

Salazar-Vallejo, Sergio I., 2023, Revision of Chloeia Savigny in Lamarck, 1818 (Annelida, Amphinomidae), Zootaxa 5238 (1), pp. 1-134 : 27-29

Chloeia ancora Frickhinger, 1916 Indeterminable

Chloeia ancora Frickhinger, 1916: 234 ; Hartman 1959: 131.

Remarks. The specific name was derived from the dorsal pigmentation: “a wide strip, that drags on in the middle of the strongly furrowed back over the animal by the whole length, sends out at the side two equally-wide wandered ribbons in each segment forward so that the picture of an anchor originates approximately in each segment” (Frickinger 1916: 234).

The type material was deposited in the Zoologische Staatssammlung Muenchen, but it is now lost (Ruthenstein-er, Jun. 2021, email). Chloeia ancora Frickhinger, 1916 described from Japan was regarded as a junior synonym of C. flava (Pallas, 1766) , described from the Bay of Bengal, by Imajima & Hartman (1964), probably after the record from Japan and comments by de Quatrefages (1866: 387). Imajima & Hartman (1964: 50) indicated that C. ancora has “a median longitudinal stripe with paired lateral branches on each segment.” This pattern rather resembles C. violacea Horst, 1910 because of the dorsal pattern resembles an inverted T, but Imajima & Hartman followed Monro (1924: 71) by disregarding the pigmentation differences as diagnostic for species. However, if the orientation of the body was reversed and the dorsal pattern was rather T- or Y-shaped, then C. ancora might be the same as C. incerta de Quatrefages, 1866 . The confusion should be solved after the study of freshly collected specimens which were not available for this study.

Distribution. Japan.