Pisione is a scaleless group of small scale worms inhabiting sandy bottoms in shallow marine waters. This group was once considered rare, but now 45 described species can be characterized, among others, by their paired, segmental copulatory organs (one to multiple external pairs), which display a complexity of various accessory structures. The evolutionary significance of these unique organs wa...

Ectoprocts, phoronids and brachiopods are often dealt with under the heading Tentaculata or Lophophorata, sometimes with entoprocts discussed in the same chapter, for example in Ruppert and Barnes (1994). The Lophophorata is purported to be held together by the presence of a "lophophore," a mesosomal tentacle crown with an upstream-collecting ciliary band. However, the mesosomal tentacle crown ...

The evolution of extracellular hemoglobins of annelids, vestimentiferans, and pogonophorans was investigated by applying cladistic and distance-based approaches to reconstruct the phylogenetic relationships of this group of respiratory pigments. We performed this study using the aligned sequences of globin and linker chains that are the constituents of these complex molecules. Three novel globi...

CHRISTER ERSÉUS, MARK J. WETZEL & LENA GUSTAVSSON Department of Zoology, University of Gothenburg, Box 463, SE-405 30 Göteborg, Sweden; e-mail: [email protected] Division of Biodiversity and Ecological Entomology, Illinois Natural History Survey, 1816 S. Oak St., 1021 I-Bldg., MC-652, Champaign, IL 61820, USA; e-mail: [email protected] Department of Invertebrate Zoology, Box 50007, SE-...

Alleurythoe, a new genus with type species Alleurythoe tenuichaetasp. n., is described and illustrated based on material from Beibu Gulf, northwestern South China Sea. The new genus is distinguished from all genera within Amphinomidae by a combination of characters: caruncle trilobed, conspicuous, attached to and confluent with the posterior prostomial lobe, which is free from the body wall and...

Two Korean endemic pheretimoid Amynthas Kinberg, 1867 species belonging in family Megascolecidae s. stricto are sketched, dissected and described. Amynthas daeari Blakemore sp. n. has spermathecae in 6/7/8 complying with an Amynthas tokioensis spp-group, whilst Amynthas jinburi Blakemore sp. n. has spermathecal pores in 5 & 6 strictly complying with Sims and Easton's (1972)Amynthas canaliculatu...

A new species of the ampharetid genus Phyllocomus, P. chinensissp. n., is described based on material from the Yellow Sea. The new species is distinguished from the known species of this genus by having two thoracic regions, with segments of the anterior region (up to thoracic chaetiger 10) approximately half as long as those of the posterior region, neuropodia of the anterior region are large ...