Nephtyidae Grube, 1850

Dixon-Bridges, Kylie, Gladstone, William & Hutchings, Pat, 2014, One new species of Micronephthys Friedrich, 1939 and one new species of Nephtys Cuvier, 1817 (Polychaeta: Phyllodocida: Nephtyidae) from eastern Australia with notes on Aglaophamus australiensis (Fauchald, 1965) and a key to all Australian species, Zootaxa 3872 (5), pp. 513-540 : 514

Family Nephtyidae Grube, 1850

Nephtyidae Grube, 1850: 249 –364.— Fauchald, 1977: 96 -97.— Ravara et al., 2010b: 5.

Diagnosis. Elongate compact bodies with an eversible pharynx, prostomium with pair of antennae and simple palps and nuchal organs present at base. Pharynx with terminal papillae and many longitudinal rows of subterminal papillae, proximal surface may be smooth or covered with small verrucae, pair of subterminal jaws.

Parapodia biramous, typically with well separated rami, with acicular, pre- and post chaetal lobes, ventral and dorsal cirrus. Chaetae simple, often barred or spinose, lyrate chaetae present or absent, aciculae thick. Except for some species of Micronephthys , branchiae are typically present on ventral margin of notopodia below dorsal cirrus occupying the interramal space. Terminal anus with single cirrus.

Comments. The above definition is largely derived from the description of the family given by Ravara et al. (2010b). Ohwada (1985) suggested that the morphology of the prostomium was a useful criterion in the identification of the nephtyids and that the shape of the antennae and palps and their point of insertion was useful, however the figures he provides are very schematic. Using this data he divides up the genus Nephtys into two groups although one of his species N. australiensis Fauchald, 1965 , has now been transferred to Aglaophamus by Ravara et al. (2010b). While accepting these are useful characters, in fixed material they are highly dependent on whether the pharynx is everted or not and we have not used his classification as the Australian species of Nephtys can be easily separated using other characters. For the new species described here we have provided this information although often it is not provided in other species descriptions which are listed in Tables 4 & 5. A recent paper by Dnestrovskaya and Jirkov (2010) has followed Ohwada (1985) classification for species of Micronephthys . We have also followed the chaetal terminology of Dnestrovkaya and Jirkov (2010, 2011) who recognise four main types: capillary, barred, chaetae with spines which we divide into two and lyrate. The development of chaetal spines varies considerably and in the most ornate cases (called spinose) the spines form regular transverse rows or combs of spines which we refer to as spinose and those with spines arranged in a single longitudinal row as serrated. We have not distinguished between those having fine and coarse spines, i.e spinose and spinulose as several earlier authors have ( Rainer and Hutchings 1977; Rainer and Kaly 1988, for example) as this can be subjective. The detailed structure of the chaetae is only revealed with the use of the scanning electron microscope.