Onuphis farensis Gil & Machado 2014

Onuphis farensis Gil & Machado, 2014

Onuphis farensis Gil & Machado, 2014: 345 –356, figs. 2–6. (Ria Formosa, Portugal).

Onuphis (Nothria) geophiliformis.— Ibáñez 1972: 26 –28, fig. 2 (Cádiz, Spain); 1973 (Isla Cristina, Spain). Not Moore, 1903. Nothria geophiliformis.— Campoy 1982. Not Moore, 1903.

? Nothria geophiliformis.— Dexter 1992: 79 (Ria de Alvor, Portugal). Not Moore, 1903.

? Onuphys geophyliformis.— Mucha & Costa 1999: 371 (Ria de Aveiro and Sado Estuary, Portugal). Not Moore, 1903.

Material examined. Non-type material. Mooreonuphis sp. (registered as Nothria geophiliformis), 1 specimen (MNCN 16.01/3329) off shore near San Francisco beach, Santiago Island, Cabo Verde archipelago, western Africa, 50 m, 22 Aug 1985; 1 specimen (MNCN 16.01/3330) Curral Velho, Boavista Island, Cabo Verde archipelago, western Africa, 26 Aug 1985.

Type locality. Ria Formosa coastal lagoon, Portugal, southwestern Iberian Peninsula, East Atlantic.

Diagnosis. Prostomium anteriorly extended. Eye spots absent. Lateral antennae twice as long as median one. First four chaetigers slightly enlarged. Subulate ventral cirri in first four chaetigers. Tri- and quatridentate pseudocompound hooded hooks present in first four chaetigers. Pectinate chaeta from chaetiger 5 with about ten teeth. Subacicular hooks present from chaetiger 9. Simple strap-like branchiae present from chaetiger 5 to the last 30–40 chaetigers. Tube thin-walled, covered with small sand grains.

Remarks. Gil & Machado (2014) described Onuphis farensis from southern Portugal and referred previous reports of Onuphis geophiliformis (Moore, 1903) from Isla Cristina and Cádiz by Ibáñez (1972; 1973) and Campoy (1982) to the new species. The reports of Nothria geophiliformis from Ria de Alvor and Onuphys geophyliformis from Ria de Aveiro and Sado Estuary, Portugal by Dexter (1992) and Mucha & Costa (1999) respectively were considered as doubtful.

We agree with these statements and are adding the following considerations based on literature reports, personal communications and the examination of preserved material. The only specimens identified as Onuphis geophiliformis or its original combination Nothria geophiliformis Moore, 1903, from the East Atlantic that were available to us for reviewing were those reported from Cabo Verde archipelago by López & San Martín (1992). However, the re-examination of these specimens revealed that they are not members of the genus Onuphis but of Mooreonuphis Fauchald, 1982 and represent a different species to the only one known for the East Atlantic to date, M. vespa Arias et al. 2013, constituting most likely an undescribed species.

Louzao et al. (2010) reported N. geophiliformis from the Cantabrian slope at a depth of 1025 m, based upon the polychaete fauna collected by the COCACE (Oceanographic Cruise of the Central Cantabrian Sea) project. We have re-examined this material, which is deposited in the Collection of the Department of Biology of Organisms and Systems at University of Oviedo (Spain), and found that these specimens are actually O. rullieriana (Amoureux, 1977), a typical deep-sea E. Atlantic species which is treated in detail below. Moreover, O. geophiliformis or its synonyms have been repeatedly reported in marine species lists from the Basque Country (e.g. Borja et al. 2000), being recently considered as an alien or nonindigenous species (NIS) for the region (e.g. Martínez & Adarraga 2006). We have examined the onuphid material from the Basque shelf collected by the oceanographic campaigns of Fauna Ibérica and have not found O. geophiliformis -like specimens. In view of the data we have so far, records of O. geophiliformis from the Cantabrian Sea should be considered as doubtful.

Throughout its long history O. geophiliformis has been the subject of dubious taxonomic affiliations and interpretations, e. g. the number of anterior chaetigers with pseudocompound hooks reported for O. geophiliformis sensu lato varied among authors, from three (Moore 1903; Fauchald 1982; Maekawa & Hayashi 1999) or four (Ibáñez 1972; 1973; Gil & Machado 2014) to six (Day 1967). Onuphis farensis differs from the original description of O. geophiliformis from Japan in that the latter has pseudocompound hooks on the anterior three instead of anterior four chaetigers, and the origin of subacicular hooks is on chaetigers 10–12 instead of chaetiger 9 (Moore 1903). It also seems unlikely that this species is the same as O. geophiliformis reported from southern Africa by Day (1967) since the latter has pseudocompound hooks in the first six chaetigers and the ventral cirri are subulate in the first five chaetigers. We cannot pursue the matter further since we have been unable to locate again the species in southern Iberia (due to the changes which have taken place in “Cabezuela de Cádiz” and nearby areas in recent years as a consequence of the enlargement of the Port of Cádiz) and the reported specimens from Cádiz and Isla Cristina are most probably not extant (Ibáñez, pers. comm.).

Distribution. East Atlantic, southern Spain to Portugal.