Laubieriopsis Petersen, 2000

Salazar-Vallejo, Sergio I., Zhadan, Anna E. & Rizzo, Alexandra E., 2019, Revision of Fauveliopsidae Hartman, 1971 (Annelida, Sedentaria), Zootaxa 4637 (1), pp. 1-67 : 39

Laubieriopsis Petersen, 2000

Laubieriopsis Petersen, 2000: 512 , Magalhães et al. 2014:144 (key to species); Zhadan & Salazar-Vallejo 2019: 322.

Type species. Fauveliopsis cabiochi Amoureux, 1982 , by original designation.

Diagnosis (modif. Magalhães et al. 2014). Fauveliopsids with body cylindrical, not swollen posteriorly. Anterior segments short, intersegmental grooves shallow or not defined; median and posterior segments long (as long as wide). Integument often transparent, smooth, without large papillae. Interramal papillae small, usually with a short stalk or sessile. Chaetae include uni- or bidentate aciculars, straight or sigmoid spinulose, and smooth capillaries. Posterior end with pygidium retractile, often with small papillae and large, falcate aciculars. Genital papillae paired or unpaired in anterior chaetigers. Free living, rarely in flexible, fibrous tubes, with or without foreign particles.

Remarks. The body shape is cylindrical, blunt in both ends, or slightly wider medially. Some Laubieriopsis species have been removed from flexible tubes, made of a fibrous matrix with sediment particles, and one species was inside thick tubes incorporating distinct mixed, sand particles. Because these tubes resemble those present in terebellids, amphinomids and some onuphids, it would be interesting to evaluate if they build the tubes by themselves, or if they use them once original builders die.

Petersen (2000) proposed separation of the species of Fauveliopsis into two distinct groups. The species retained in Fauveliopsis have bodies club-shaped or fusiform with annulated, often rugose integument, whereas those species placed in Laubieriopsis have bodies rather cylindrical with smooth integument. As stated above, there are apparently two different body shapes in the Northern Pacific as illustrated by the SIORAS collections: one has a wide body with integument darker, often opaque, whereas the other one has a thinner body with integument colorless and transparent. Because Imajima (2009) has recently proposed a new subspecies, Laubieriopsis brevis japonica , it would be interesting to study the type series of L. hartmanae to select a lectotype and separate it from the newly described taxon. However, the type series of L. hartmanae is not available in SIORAS and it became lost after Dr. Mary Petersen passed away.