Capitella capitata (Fabricius, 1780), complex

Ribeiro, Rannyele Passos, Alves, Paulo Ricardo, Almeida, Zafira da Silva de & Ruta, Christine, 2018, A new species of Paraonis and an annotated checklist of polychaetes from mangroves of the Brazilian Amazon Coast (Annelida, Paraonidae), ZooKeys 740, pp. 1-34 : 16-17

Capitella capitata (Fabricius, 1780), complex Fig. 11A, B

Type locality.

Uummannaq, West Greenland (71°6.5'N, 51°17'W; original geolocation).

Material examined.

São Luís, 02°35'56"S, 44°21'11.8"W: six specimens, 29 March 2011 (NPM-Pol 069); one specimen, 23 September 2012 (NPM-Pol 102); 17 specimens, 18 December 2011 (NPM-Pol 851). Caranguejos Island, 02°49'33.6"S, 44°28'51.1"W: five specimens, 17 October 2010 (NPM-Pol 852); two specimens, 26 January 2011 (NPM-Pol 853); two specimens, 17 December 2011 (NPM-Pol 854). Complete and incomplete specimens.

Distribution.

Arctic Ocean: Greenland. Pacific Ocean: China, Japan, Australia, USA, Mexico, Costa Rica. Indian Ocean: Red Sea. Atlantic Ocean: North Sea, Ireland, UK, Germany, Netherlands, France, Spain, Mediterranean Sea, Ukraine, South Africa, USA, Mexico, Caribbean Sea, Brazil (states of Pará, Maranhão, Ceará, Paraíba, Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo, Paraná, Santa Catarina and Rio Grande do Sul, see Suppl. material 1).

Remarks.

First record for Maranhão. The specimens examined in this study are similar to the neotype description of Capitella capitata by Blake (2009). C. capitata was considered as a globally distributed species, but allozyme analyses have demonstrated that this species is composed of at least six sibling species ( Grassle and Grassle 1976). Additionally, Blake (2009) indicates that C. capitata may be only distributed in Arctic regions, suggesting that the numerous records from lower latitudes are not this species. Nevertheless, the specimens from warmer waters such as in the Caribbean ( Amoureux 1985) and Brazil ( Pardo et al. 2010) are also similar to the neotype descriptions by Blake (2009). Recently, four new species of Capitella were described from the Capitella capitata complex ( Silva et al. 2017). Studies including molecular data must to be conducted on these animals from Maranhão, and the specimens should be re-examined.