Sigambra tentaculata (Treadwell, 1941)

Muir, Alexander I. & Bamber, Roger N., 2008, New polychaete (Annelida) records and a new species from Hong Kong: the families Polynoidae, Sigalionidae, Chrysopetalidae, Pilargiidae, Nereididae, Opheliidae, Ampharetidae and Terebellidae, Journal of Natural History 42 (9 - 12), pp. 797-814 : 806

Sigambra tentaculata (Treadwell, 1941) agg.

Material

Six specimens, station Q, Hoi Ha Wan, Hong Kong, 22 ° 23947.20 N 114 ° 20908.740E sediment 7% gravel, 19% sand, 74% silt/clay, depth 16 m, water temperature 25 ° C. (NHM 2003.1074–1079) .

This species of Sigambra was recorded from Hong Kong waters by Shin and Thompson (1982); it also has 14 pharyngeal papillae and a notopodial capillary seta on mid-body to posterior chaetigers. While having notopodial hooks starting about chaetigers 4 to 8, it is without neuropodial pectinate chaetae. These Hong Kong specimens are comparatively small for this species: three were measured at 3.28 mm for 41 chaetigers; 4.45 mm for 43 chaetigers; 5.11 mm for 49 chaetigers.

It is most unlikely that all of the material attributed to S. tentaculata is of the same species. Shin et al. (2003) record Sigambra hanaokai (Kitamori, 1960) from the seabed around much of Hong Kong; however, Licher and Westheide (1997) discussed the distinction of this, amongst other, species and concluded that the characters described to distinguish S. hanaokai from S. tentaculata are not valid, and synonymized these species. Equally, it seems untenable that the material described as S. hanaokai from Vietnam, the Yellow Sea, the South China Sea and Japan is the same species as that from the northwest Atlantic (the type locality of S. tentaculata ), let alone the material from the south Atlantic, the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico, the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean. Until more rigorous work, perhaps including molecular analyses, is undertaken on these taxa, it is considered that at present the material attributed to S. tentaculata should be considered an aggregate of sibling species.