Iphione ovata Kinberg, 1856

Muir, Alexander I. & Bamber, Roger N., 2008, New polychaete (Annelida) records and a new species from Hong Kong: the families Polynoidae, Sigalionidae, Chrysopetalidae, Pilargiidae, Nereididae, Opheliidae, Ampharetidae and Terebellidae, Journal of Natural History 42 (9 - 12), pp. 797-814 : 799

Iphione ovata Kinberg, 1856

Material

One adult, one juvenile from Fan Tsang Chau (Conic Island) Cave , station D, 28 m in from the cave mouth, depth 12.3 m.

The adult specimen agrees well with the description of Iphione ovata given by Pettibone (1986); the other specimen is a juvenile which probably also belongs to this species. Pettibone (1986) records this species as widely distributed in tropical and subtropical regions of the eastern, central and western Pacific and Indian Oceans and the Red Sea, mainly in intertidal and shallow depths, associated with coral reefs.

One other species of Iphione , I. muricata (Savigny, 1818) , has been reported from Hong Kong by Mak (1982) and Hanley (1992), and Wu et al. (1997) list this species from the South China Sea. The scales of I. muricata have a lateral fringe of long cylindrical spinous papillae, whereas those of I. ovata have a smooth edge. Iphione muricata is another species widely distributed in tropical and subtropical regions of the Indo-Pacific, in mainly intertidal and shallow water, associated with coral reefs ( Pettibone 1986).