Family Nereididae de Blainville, 1818

Genus Lycastonereis Rao, 1981

Lycastonereis Rao 1981: 213.

Type species. Lycastonereis indica Rao, 1981, by original designation.

Diagnosis (amended, new features highlighted in boldface). Prostomium with anterior margin entire. One pair of antennae and two pairs of eyes. Three pairs of anterior cirri. Pharynx with rounded papillae present in both oral and maxillary ring, in all areas except area V. Chaetigers 1 and 2 with neuroaciculae only. Notopodial dorsal ligules, notopodial prechaetal lobes, and neuroacicular ligules bilobed present in anterior chaetigers; notopodial dorsal ligules, notopodial prechaetal lobes and neuropodial postchaetal lobes absent in posterior chaetigers. Neuropodial ventral ligules absent throughout body. Notochaetae homogomph spinigers; neurochaetae homogomph spinigers and falcigers in supra-acicular fascicles, homogomph and sesquigomph spinigers and homogomph falcigers in subacicular fascicles.

Remarks. In the original paper, the name of the author appears as ‘C. A. Nageswara Rao’, suggesting the last two words correspond to the surnames, hence the use of the combination ‘Nageswara-Rao’ as the authority for the taxa he proposed. This combination is used by Rao himself when citing some of his papers (e.g. Rao 1999; 2008). In other occasions, he (e.g. Rao 1998, 2008) and their colleagues (e.g. Alfred et al. 2000) cited his papers as ‘Rao, C. A. N.’, suggesting that ‘Rao’ is the surname only and that ‘Nageswara’ is a middle name. When citing the species he described, the author used the combination ‘Rao’, as the case for Namalycastis fauveli Rao, 1981 (e.g. Rao 1999: 44; Rao 1998: 201; Rao 2008: 16). Misra (1999: 147, 159) and Muir & Hossain (2014: 7, 12) followed this combination for L. indica and N. fauveli. Here the combination ‘Rao’ for the authorship, as stated by the author, is used.

Lycastonereis indica has a set of unique features, which are highlighted in the amended diagnosis. Additional features included in the current diagnosis are the lack of neuropodial ventral ligules along the body, the lack of several parapodial processes toward posterior end, and homogomph falcigers deprived of dentition. The presence of papillae in both oral and maxillary rings is a unique feature in this genus.