Enoplobranchus Verrill, 1879

Londoño-Mesa, Mario H., 2009, Terebellidae (Polychaeta: Terebellida) from the Grand Caribbean region 2320, Zootaxa 2320 (1), pp. 1-93 : 15-16

Enoplobranchus Verrill, 1879

Verrill, 1879:10. Webster, 1879:263; 1884:324.— Fauchald, 1977a:131.

Synonyms: Chaetobranchus Verrill, 1873 (preoccupied by a fish genus).

Type species: Chaetobranchus sanguineus Verrill, 1873 ; by monotypy.

Diagnosis: Tentacular membrane wide, undulating; eyespots and lateral lappets absent; two longitudinal muscular ventral ridges of glandular shields separated by few small, well-definded, square, ventral, non-glandular shields; notopodia from segment 2; anterior thoracic notopodia with simple cirrus; middle and posterior thoracic notopodia cirriform and vascularized, with increasing number of cirri gradually to 7, until posterior thorax; abdominal notopodia with simple cirrus; notochaetae pinnate (cones overlapped); abdominal notopodia simple; thoracic and abdominal neurochaeta absent.

Remarks: There is only one species described in the genus, Enoplobranchus sanguineus ( Verrill, 1873) , from Connecticut USA. Thus, the present report expands the distribution of the species to include the upper Gulf of Mexico and southeastern Mexican localities. Holthe (1986b) indicated “ Enoplobranchus Webster, 1879 ” but Webster (1879) cited Enoplobranchus Verrill since Verrill (1879) proposed it as a replacement name for Chaetobranchus Verrill, 1873 , as it was preoccupied by a fish genus, Chaetobranchus Haeckel ( Hartman, 1942) . Thus, the checklist presented by Verrill (1879) is regarded as a formal publication, and his name must be considered the authority of the genus.