Dipolydora Verrill, 1879

Abe, Hirokazu & Sato-Okoshi, Waka, 2021, Molecular identification and larval morphology of spionid polychaetes (Annelida, Spionidae) from northeastern Japan, ZooKeys 1015, pp. 1-86 : 1

Genus Dipolydora Verrill, 1879

Larval diagnosis.

Overall shape slender or slightly fusiform. Prostomium small rounded anteriorly. Three pairs of black eyes present, most lateral pairs often double-eyes. Ramified melanophore between central and lateral pairs of eyes usually absent, but present in some species (e.g., D. cf. commensalis ). Dorsal pigment pattern consists of two rows of band or spot shaped melanophores or a transverse row of small melanophores at each chaetiger in most species, while some species have single row of branching mid-dorsal melanophores (e.g., D. cf. commensalis ) or completely lack melanophores (e.g., D. armata ). Lateral and ventral pigments are present or absent. Nototrochs occur in all chaetigers except the first two chaetigers. Gastrotrochs occur in irregular pattern. Modified chaetae develop in chaetiger V in late larvae ( Andrews 1891, as Polydora ; Hannerz 1956, as Polydora ; Hatfield 1965, as Polydora ; Blake 1969, as Polydora ; Carrasco 1976, as Polydora ; Day and Blake 1979, as Polydora ; Radashevsky 1989, as Polydora ; Plate and Husemann 1994, as Polydora ; Lewis 1998; Blake 2006; Blake 2017).