Taeniogyrus bamberi O'Loughlin, sp. nov.

Taeniogyrus bamberi O’Loughlin sp. nov.

Figures 1, 6–8; key

Material examined. Holotype. Antarctica, Weddell Sea, station ‘West Brunt Shelf 2’, AGT 60, 75.2686– 75.26921 ºS, 31.16355– 31.168 ºW, agassiz trawl 614.3–616.52 m, BAS cruise JR275 RRS James Clark Ross, collected M. Mackenzie et al., 23/02/2012, NHMUK 2014.40.

Paratypes. As for holotype, NMV F218847 (1); NMV F218848 (1); NHMUK 2014.41–43 (3).

Other material. Antarctica, Weddell Sea, station ‘400 m’, AGT 93, 74.69752– 74.69752ºS, 29.49652– 29.49558ºW, agassiz trawl 439.76–450.09 m, BAS cruise JR275 RRS James Clark Ross, collected M. Mackenzie et al., 29/02/2012, NMV F218849 (1, grey fragment, 3 mm long).

Diagnosis. Taeniogyrid species, vermiform, tapered posteriorly, up to 32 mm long (preserved); small wheel papillae, many lost; 10 peltato-digitate tentacles, four pairs of sub-equal digits; radial plates of calcareous ring with low anterior mid-plate projection, lateral edges of plates with rounded raised anterior edges, shallow excavations for tentacular ampullae on outer side of plates, lacking perforation for nerve; single polian vesicle.

Ossicles in tentacles rods, shafts predominantly smooth, rare lateral projections that are bluntly spinous distally, bifurcate to short branches at ends, projections and short branches with small blunt spines distally, rods 175–260 µ m long; ossicles in body wall wheels and sigmoid hooks; wheels clustered into discrete papillae dorsally and laterally, wheels rounded hexagonal with six spokes and teeth around inner rim continuous, middle and posterior body wall wheel diameters 80–88 µ m; sigmoid hooks scattered throughout body wall, hooks in anterior body wall typically 273 µ m long, hooks in posterior body wall typically 247 µ m long.

Colour. Preserved (briefly): off-white to grey with faint orange to purple tinge and very fine dark speckle on body and tentacles, tentacles cream.

Distribution. Antarctica, Weddell Sea, West Brunt Shelf, 75ºS, 30ºW, 440– 617 m. Etymology. Named bamberi for our esteemed colleague and friend Roger Bamber.

Remarks. Taeniogyrus bamberi O’Loughlin sp. nov. is distinguished from other Antarctic Taeniogyrus species by tentacle rod lengths. Based on the data in O’Loughlin & VandenSpiegel (2010) tentacle rod lengths are of the order of twice as long (up to 260 µ m long) in T. bamberi as those in T. antarcticus Heding, 1931 (up to 128 µ m long) and T. prydzi O’Loughlin & VandenSpiegel, 2010 (up to 152 µ m long). Hook lengths (up to 273 µ m long) in T. bamberi are significantly longer than in T. antarcticus (up to 208 µ m long) and similar to T. prydzi (up to 272 µ m long). Wheel diameters are of comparable size for these three Antarctic species of Taeniogyrus. Specimens of Taeniogyrus bamberi are small and damaged and it was not possible to examine ciliated funnels. We note that many or all of the surface wheel papillae were apparently abraided off during capture and we initially thought that this species lacked wheels and was a Scoliorhapis H. L. Clark, 1946 species.