Spirobranchus coronatus Straughan, 1967a

Kupriyanova, Elena K., Sun, Yanan, Ten Hove, Harry A., Wong, Eunice & Rouse, Greg W., 2015, Serpulidae (Annelida) of Lizard Island, Great Barrier Reef, Australia, Zootaxa 4019 (1), pp. 275-353 : 329

Spirobranchus coronatus Straughan, 1967a

( Fig. 27A )

Spirobranchus coronatus Straughan, 1967a: 247 –248, fig. 15 [Qld, Australia, material studied; diagnosis, see Remarks]. Spirobranchus coronatus . — Straughan 1976b: 39 [Qld, Australia].

Material examined. AM W.41751, Yonge Reef, 14°35'S, 145°37'E, coll. R. Smith, 5 Nov 1985; AM W.47305 (2), Day Reef, Deep Reef slope, 14°29'S, 145°33'E, coral rubble, 14 m, coll. N. Bruce, 19 Feb 2009; AM W.47315, Deep Reef slope, Fore Reef, 14°28'18"S, 145°31'48"E, coral rubble, 10 m, coll. M. Blazewicz-Paskowycz, 13 Feb 2009; AM W.47318, North Direction Island, Deep Reef slope, 14°44'36"S, 145°30'54"E, coral rubble, 2 m, coll. C. Watson; AM W.47348, Bird Islet, front reef, 14°41'48"S, 145°27'54"E, coral rubble, 3 m, coll. C. Watson, 8 Feb 2009; AM W.47357, North Head Reef, Fore Reef, 14°38'42"S, 145°27'12"E, coral rubble, 12 m, coll. M. Blazewicz-Paskowycz, 14 Feb 2008; AM W.47358, Patch Reef near lagoon entrance, 14°41'48"S, 145°27'54"E, coral rubble, 2 m, coll. N. Bruce, 11 Apr 2008; SAM stn.G231, Coconut Beach, coll. G. Rouse & E. Kupriyanova, 26 Oct 2005.

Diagnosis. Opercular plate with eight or ten almost erect and almost separate spines, basally arranged in 3 or 4 dichotomously branching groups. Peduncular wings without terminal digitate processes but may be laterally crenulated.

Remarks. Straughan’s poor description and figures led ten Hove (1970: 48) to synonymise this taxon with Sp. tetraceros . In 1983 and 1986, ten Hove (unpubl.) studied Straughan’s holotype (AM W.4025) and two presumed paratypes (AM W.4038 and AM W.4123), and based on this he reinstated the name (1993: 83; 1994: 112) for material from the Seychelles. However, Pillai (2009: 148–150, fig. 37 A–H) described Sp. baileybrockae from Western Australia, differing from Sp. coronatus mainly in the presence of centrally directed spinules on the not branching opercular spines and the presence of a central spine. The latter characters were figured by Bailey-Brock (1985: fig. 8d–e) for material from Fiji as well. In this light, the material from the Seychelles should be restudied and held against the variability of the Lizard Island population (and Straughan’s original material which included some variation as well), but a full revision of these forms falls outside the scope of this paper.

Distribution. Qld, Australia.

Figures

FIGURE 27. A. Spirobranchus coronatus, live animal in tube, stn. G 231 SAM; B – C. Sp. corrugatus, live animals removed from their tubes, stn. G 246 SAM and AM W. 43887 respectively; D. Opercula of fixed specimens, AM W. 21678. Photo: A, B – G. Rouse, C – A. Semenov, D – E. Wong. Scale bars: A – C = 1 mm, D = 0.1 mm.