Leonnates guadalupensis Amoureux, 1985

Hong, Jae-Sang, Choi, Byung-Mee, Kubo, Aki & Sato, Masanori, 2012, Redescription of the giant mud worm Paraleonnates uschakovi Khlebovich and Wu, 1962 (Polychaeta: Nereididae) with special reference to the synonymy of Periserrula leucophryna Paik, 1977 and the difference from Paraleonnates bolus, Zootaxa 3490, pp. 49-62 : 60

Leonnates guadalupensis Amoureux, 1985 comb. nov.

Paraleonnates guadalupensis Amoureux, 1985: 96–98 , fig. 2 (type locality: Lagoon of Manche-a-Eau, Guadeloupe, Antilles, the eastern Caribbean; holotype: MNHN POLY TYPE 533–538, see Solis-Weiss et al., 2004).

Diagnosis based on original description. Prostomium with entire anterior margin, one pair of antennae, one pair of palps, two pairs of round eyes. Eversible proboscis with conical paragnaths on both maxillary ring (area I, 0; II, 5–9; III, 8–12; IV, 5–8) and oral ring (area V, 0; VI, 3), and with single transverse row of nine soft papillae and some smaller ones on areas VII–VIII. Four pairs of tentacular cirri; posterior dorsal tentacular cirri longest, reaching back to parapodium 2. Notopodia consisting of three ligules/lobes (dorsal ligule, prechaetal lobe, and ventral ligule) and dorsal cirrus. Neuropodia consisting of three ligules/lobes and ventral cirrus. All chaetae homogomph; all spinigers in anterior chaetigers; homogomph falcigers present among neurochaetae of posterior chaetigers.

Remarks. This species was originally described under the newly erected monotypic genus Paraleonnates Amoureux, 1985 . However, this genus was judged as a junior homonym of Paraleonnates Khlebovich and Wu, 1962 , as mentioned above. Therefore, a new generic name should be given for this species according to the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature. However, we could not agree on the establishment of a new genus for this species since Amoureux’s (1985) original description was insufficient due to serious ambiguities in diagnostic characteristics; e.g., the distinction between paragnaths and papillae in the oral ring of proboscis was ambiguous. Amoureux (1985: 97) described the presence of papillae on areas VII–VIII as “perhaps simple soft papillae strongly colored by Rose Bengal (peut-être simples papilles molles fortement colorées par le rose bengale)”. As Amoureux (1985) suggested, general characteristics of this species are in good agreement with those of the genus Leonnates Kinberg, 1865 , except that this species has paragnaths on area VI. However, we could not judge correctly whether the “paragnaths” on area VI are true paragnaths or papillae strongly colored by Rose Bengal, similar to those on areas VII–VIII in Amoureux’s (1985) description. Therefore, this species is transferred to Leonnates in the present study. Another possible genus to which this species may belong is Wuinereis Khlebovich, 1996 ; this genus is monotypic, erected for W. simplex ( Monro 1939) , and characterized by the presence of paragnaths on area VI and papillae on areas VII–VIII ( Qiu and Qian 2000), although it is different from L. guadalupensis in terms of the absence of notopodial prechaetal lobe and the presence of heterogomph falcigers instead of homogomph ones.