Onuphis eremita Audouin & Milne Edwards, 1883

Onuphis eremita Audouin & Milne Edwards, 1833: 226; Redondo & San Martín, 1997: 227; Arias & Paxton, 2014: 148 –158, figs. 1–8.

Onuphis falesia Castelli, 1982: 45, fig. 1–11 (Gulf of Follonica, Italy).

Onuphis eremita oculata .— Çinar, 2009: 2297 –2299, fig. 4 (Turkey). Not Hartman, 1951.

Material examined. Type material. Neotype (MNHN TYPE 1555) La Rochelle, France, East Atlantic, 46°09’N, 01°09’W – 46°09’N, 01°10’W, intertidal sands, coll. 28 Sep 2011.

Non-type material. For a detailed listing of additional material from France, Cantabrian and Mediterranean coasts of Spain and Malta see Arias & Paxton (2014).

Type locality. La Rochelle, France, Bay of Biscay, East Atlantic.

Diagnosis. Prostomium anteriorly extended, one pair of small eyespots present at anterolateral end of prostomium. Palps reaching chaetiger 2–4, lateral antennae reaching chaetiger 7–14 and median antenna chaetiger 4–7. Ceratophores long and strongly ringed, palpal ceratophores with 16–20 rings, lateral antennae with 19–22 and median antenna with 13–19 rings. Subulate ventral cirri in first five to six chaetigers; distinct subulate postchaetal lobes in first 10–17 chaetigers. Small interramal papilla present at base of dorsal cirrus in chaetigers 4(5)–9. Strongly tridentate pseudocompound slender, long and robust, short appendaged hooks in first three chaetigers. Subacicular hooks from chaetiger 10. Flat, distally oblique pectinate chaetae with 10–13 teeth. Single branchial filaments from chaetiger 1 to 20–26, thereafter number increasing rapidly to maximum of three to five. Colour pattern consisting of two rows of brownish patches on dorsal anterior end or brown transverse stripes when lateral patches coalesce medially. Tube thin-walled and covered with sand grains.

Remarks. The taxonomic identity of O. eremita, the type species of the genus, was extremely controversial. It was confounded by vague descriptions, redescriptions based on worldwide material and the establishment of dubious synonymies over the last century. However, a neotype was recently designated and the species was redescribed by Arias & Paxton (2014). These authors redefined its diagnostic features, restricted its distribution range to the European Atlantic and the Mediterranean Sea, making its conspecificity with the specimens reported from outside Europe and the Mediterranean very unlikely.

Distribution. East Atlantic (Cantabrian Sea, Bay of Biscay) and western and central Mediterranean. However, it is most likely that the species is widely distributed along the Atlantic coasts of Iberia and the Levantine basin of the Mediterranean Sea.