Pleijelius cf. longae Salazar-Vallejo & Orensanz, 2006

Gunton, Laetitia M., Kupriyanova, Elena K., Alvestad, Tom, Avery, Lynda, Blake, James A., Biriukova, Olga, Boeggemann, Markus, Borisova, Polina, Budaeva, Nataliya, Burghardt, Ingo, Capa, Maria, Georgieva, Magdalena N., Glasby, Christopher J., Hsueh, Pan-Wen, Hutchings, Pat, Jimi, Naoto, Kongsrud, Jon A., Langeneck, Joachim, Meissner, Karin, Murray, Anna, Nikolic, Mark, Paxton, Hannelore, Ramos, Dino, Schulze, Anja, Sobczyk, Robert, Watson, Charlotte, Wiklund, Helena, Wilson, Robin S., Zhadan, Anna & Zhang, Jinghuai, 2021, Annelids of the eastern Australian abyss collected by the 2017 RV ' Investigator' voyage, ZooKeys 1020, pp. 1-198 : 1

Pleijelius cf. longae Salazar-Vallejo & Orensanz, 2006

Diagnosis.

Prostomium ovoid, broader than long, with three short antennae and two short palps. No eyes. Six pairs of cirriform tentacular cirri on segments 1-3, longer than dorsal cirri. Dorsal cirri from segment 4 onwards multiarticulate, longer than body width. Notopodia low mounds with notochaetae spread out in a fan-like arrangement dorsally. Neuropodia elongated, with straight acicula and long acicular lobes. Neurochaetae heterogomph falcigers with serrated edge. Ventral cirri cirriform, much smaller than dorsal cirri. Three cirriform anal cirri on pygidium. Colour in ethanol white.

Remarks.

We use the cf. designation here in recognition that Pleijelius longae , the only representative of the genus and originally described from the Northwestern Atlantic Ocean at 3500 m, is unlikely to be the same species as ours. Pleijelius is represented by a single species, P. longae Salazar-Vallejo & Orensanz, 2006. Observed specimens differ from P. longae in having notochaetal capillaries with denticles along the entire length instead of just near the tip, as well as possessing three anal cirri instead of six. This is the first report of this genus in the Pacific Ocean, occurring on whale fall, and at a depth of 1000 m.

Records.

2 specimens. Suppl. material 1: op. 100 (NHMUK).