Chaetopleura (Chaetopleura) peruviana (Lamarck, 1819)

Araya, Juan Francisco & Araya, Marta Esther, 2015, The shallow-water chitons (Mollusca, Polyplacophora) of Caldera, Region of Atacama, northern Chile, Zoosystematics and Evolution 91 (1), pp. 45-58 : 45

Taxon classification Animalia Chitonida Chaetopleuridae

Chaetopleura (Chaetopleura) peruviana (Lamarck, 1819) Plate 1, Fig. 4; Table 2

Chiton peruvianus Lamarck, 1819: 321; Barnes 1824: 70, pl. 3, fig. 2. Chaetopleura peruviana : Plate 1902: 182, pl. 2, figs 141-142, pl. 10, figs 294-301, pl. 11, figs 302-303; Dall 1909: 244; Marincovich 1973: 44, fig. 101; Aldea and Valdovinos 2005: 383, fig. 5C. Chaetopleura (Chaetopleura) peruviana : Kaas and Van Belle 1987: 62, fig. 27; Reid and Osorio 2000: 113, fig. 2A.

Description.

Animal of medium to large size, up to 45 mm long in examined specimens. Oval to elongate oval, slightly depressed, color of tegmentum greenish-brown to dark brown. Head valve semicircular, front slope straight, posterior margin V-shaped. Intermediate valves broadly rectangular. Tail valve less than semicircular, almost as wide as head valve. Girdle profusely beset with very long (up to 10 mm) thick, coarse, corneous hairs, not only interspersed throughout girdle but in girdle bridges, protruding at sutures and extending over valves. Tegmentum pustulose sculptured with minute and neatly separated pustules, on the end valves the pustules are arranged in radiating rows. Body width/length, mean 0.66; height/length, mean 0.22 (After Ferreira 1983).

Material examined.

Specimens found in almost all locations, with the exception of Bahia Cisne, Puerto Viejo and Playa Rodillo up to Obispito (Table 1). Calderilla (MPCCL 3072014C, 1 specimen).

Distribution.

Kaas and Van Belle (1987) cited this species along the western coast of South America, between Cape San Lorenzo (1°4 ’0” S; 80°55 ’60” W), Ecuador to the Chonos Archipelago (45°0 ’0” S; 74°0 ’0” W), southern Chile. This species lives in the intertidal zone down to a depth of 40 m ( Kaas and Van Belle 1987).

Remarks.

This species is easily distinguished from all other chitons in the region by the presence of hairs covering the valves and sutures. A similar species, Chaetopleura (Chaetopleura) benaventei Plate, 1899 is slightly smaller in size and differs in the overall coloration and in the absence of the corneous bristles. Chaetopleura hennahi (Gray, 1828) found between El Callao, Peru and Arica, Chile ( Kaas and Van Belle 1987) has a wine-red to reddish brown tegmentum and lacks the blackish corneous hairs which protrude at the sutures in Chaetopleura peruviana .