Micropodarke Okuda, 1938

Rizzo, Alexandra E. & Salazar-Vallejo, Sergio I., 2014, Hesionidae Grube, 1850 (Annelida: Polychaeta) from South-Southeastern Brazil, with descriptions of four new species, Zootaxa 3856 (2), pp. 267-291 : 270

Micropodarke Okuda, 1938

Micropodarke Okuda, 1938:90 ; Pleijel, 1998:115 –117; Pleijel & Rouse, 2005: 1313 –1325. Type species: Micropodarke amemiyai Okuda, 1938 , by monotypy.

Diagnosis (modified from Pleijel & Rouse 2005). Presence of proboscis diaphragm, segmental ventral adhesive papillae, distally knobbed, and slightly curved neuroaciculae, and three to six median neurochaetae with few, basally situated prolonged teeth (“spurs”), with abrupt transition to following, much shorter teeth.

Remarks. Micropodarke is regarded as a monotypic genus. Okuda (1938) described M. amemiyai based on an incomplete specimen (10 mm long, 50 chaetigers), collected near Mitsui, Izu Peninsula, Japan. The type species was regarded as a junior synonym of M. dubia ( Hessle, 1925) by Imajima & Hartman (1964) and Pleijel & Rouse (2005), and M. trilobata Hartmann-Schröder, 1983 from Australia, also described with an anterior fragment, was also synonymized with M. dubia by Pleijel & Rouse (2005). There are some differences in the relative development of ciliary bands in the first segments, relative size of antennae and palps (some specimens have them of about the same length), and of adhesive glands (some specimens having them as short lobes with blunt, hemispherical tips against others with a projected lobe with conical, blunt tip). The identity of this supposedly widely distributed species must be evaluated with molecular methods and with the study of living specimens to clarify their pigmentation patterns. The following key is based upon the morphological features indicated above and other features.