Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History

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“Scalispinigera oculata, new species

(Plate 41)

Record: 16:1 sta. 10-63 (1, TYPE).

Description: A small, dark brown, bristly worm with areolated epithelium is believed to represent this family; it does not conform to the conventional definition of the family (see generic characters above). Length of the single individual is 6.5 mm, width 0.7 mm and segments number about 50. The body is small, linear, depressed, and very bristly because of the long setal fascicles directed laterally. The epithelium is somewhat areolated and segments are transversely triannulate; the para­podia are on the middle ring. The body tapers posteriorly to a slender pygidium.

The prostomium (Fig. A) is broadly rectangular, more than twice as wide as long and has a pair of conspicuous black eyes located at the lat­eral edges. A preopercular area has a row of transverse papillae. The mid-frontal margin is slightly excavate; a pair of depressed subglobular ven­tral processes precedes the oral aperture. The first segment is a smooth, incomplete ring, middorsally incised; it is prolonged laterally to form translucent folds over the eyes.

Parapodia are biramous but similar to each other; neuropodia are the larger; they lack dorsal and ventral cirri (Fig. B); a short presetal and postsetal lobe present in anterior parapodia diminishes and disappears in median and posterior parapodia. Notosetae, numbering 12 to 16 in a spreading fascicle, are directed dorsolaterally (Fig. B); each is a slender, capillary seta. Neurosetae are more numerous, number 20 to 30 in a spreading fascicle ; each is very slender, about as thick as notosetae, and distally composite spinigerous; the appendages of those in the first seg­ment are shortest, and those in postmedian segments range from short at superiormost and inferiormost ends of the fascicle to long at the mid­dle (Fig. C). Each ramus is penetrated by a single, yellow, straight aciculum.

The pygidial end is somewhat damaged; it may lack cirriform or other terminal processes.

Distribution: Antarctic Peninsula, shore.”

(Hartman, 1967)