Lineus stigmatus Coe, 1951

Gonzalez-Cueto, Jaime, Quiroga, Sigmer & Norenburg, Jon, 2014, A shore-based preliminary survey of marine ribbon worms (Nemertea) from the Caribbean coast of Colombia, ZooKeys 439, pp. 83-108 : 90-92

Taxon classification Animalia Heteronemertea Lineidae

Lineus stigmatus Coe, 1951 Fig. 2 J–L

Description.

One specimen up to about 30 mm long, 2 mm wide; dorsoventrally flattened, anterior margin somewhat squared, posterior end tapered, caudal cirrus absent. Body dark violet or dark olive green; paired, widely spaced, transversely elongate white markings dorsally, each pair part of barely perceptible thin white ring encircling body; anterior two-thirds of head white with prominent brown pigment patterning, including a V-shaped marking dorsally and ventrally, each pointed anteriorly. Deep cephalic furrows form lateral margins of head. About 20 to 30 small ocelli disposed in a single irregular line on each side of head along anterior third of cephalic furrow. Mouth ventral, a large longitudinal slit posterior to cephalic furrows. Cephalic ganglion visible through body wall as a pink mass.

Distribution.

Florida ( Coe 1951), Belize (JLN, pers obs); Santa Marta, Colombia.

Comment.

Coe (1951) named Lineus stigmatus from the shore of Biscayne Bay, Florida. He illustrates and describes in useful detail only the posterior portion, and this agrees strongly with the pattern of paired white markings seen in our specimen, which is not known from any other nemerteans in the region. We believe that it is reasonable to assign our specimens to Coe’s species; we base this on the distinctive color pattern and the strong regional distribution overlaps for many of the other regional nemertean species. Though Coe (1951) noted a potential similarity with Lineus albocinctus Verrill, 1900, we judge the color patterns to be very different. Coe (1951) also comments “… color pattern in this species has a superficial resemblance to that of some individuals of Lineus geniculatus (D. Chiaje) in which the white rings are interrupted in the mid dorsal line but in the latter species the rings continue laterally and ventrally". Riser (1991) resurrected Notospermus (Huschke, 1830) and transferred to it Lineus geniculatus (sensu Delle Chiaje, 1828) of several authors. We agree that the pigment pattern resembles that of Notospermus geniculatus as well as that of a variety of similar worm images available via the internet and attributed to Notospermus geniculatus (JLN, pers obs). We anticipate that Lineus stigmatus is congeneric with Notospermus geniculatus , but this needs to be corroborated with internal anatomy and/or molecular data.