Glandiceps talaboti ( Marion, 1876 )

Boury-Esnault, Nicole, Bellan, Gerard, Bellan-Santini, Denise, Boudouresque, Charles-Francois, Chevaldonné, Pierre, Dias, Alrick, Faget, Daniel, Harmelin, Jean-Georges, Harmelin-Vivien, Mireille, Lejeusne, Christophe, Perez, Thierry, Vacelet, Jean & Verlaque, Marc, 2023, The Station Marine d’Endoume, Marseille: 150 years of natural history, Zootaxa 5249 (2), pp. 213-252 : 235

Glandiceps talaboti ( Marion, 1876) ( Fig. 7 ): a deep-sea worm with affinities to echinoderms and chordates

(Hemichordata, Enteropneusta, Spengelidae )

In July–October of 1875, Antoine-Fortuné Marion had undertaken a dredging inventory of the deep-sea bottom to the south-east of the Bay of Marseille , to complete his previous studies of the littoral zone ( Marion 1873). These dredging efforts were realized thanks to the financial support of a group of his friends (Talabot, Benet, Renouard, Meilhac, Mazel, Gallas and Martin). Among the most interesting discoveries he made was a new enteropneust species from yellowish sticky mud at 350 m depth in the area then called “Plateau Marsilli”. First Enteropneusta from Provence at this time, it was shortly described by Marion in 1876 as Balanoglossus talaboti , to honour one of his friends and sponsors. Later, he gave a very complete description of the species, pink-coloured, cylindrical and composed of a short anterior and conical proboscis, a collar where the mouth opens, and a trunk ( Marion, 1885, 1886). Marion could observe the animal alive, crawling on the sediment surface of an aquarium for several weeks and noticed the emission of thick mucus with iodine smell when the animal was disturbed. Later, Spengel (1893) studied the enteropneusts of the Bay of Naples and subdivided the genus Balanoglossus in four genera, assigning Marion’s species to the genus Glandiceps , even becoming its type-species. The Enteropneusta, although not speciesrich, are part of the Hemichordata and as such have a major evolutionary interest due to their close relationships with both Echinodermata and Chordata.

Glandiceps talaboti is a Mediterranean endemic species. It was later collected in bathyal mud of the Cassidaigne and Lacaze-Duthiers canyons (DPR096 cruise, see photo, Zibrowius personal communication), possibly along Egyptian coasts near Alexandria, and also recently off Turkey ( Çevik & Erguden 2005).

Figures

FIGURE 7. Glandiceps talaboti: Upper and lower left, respectively dorsal and ventral drawings of G. talaboti observed in vivo by Marion, 1886. Right, recent photograph from a specimen collected in Lacaze-Duthiers canyon during the DPRO96 cruise at 534–634 m. (Coll. H. Zibrowius, Photo by Dieter Fiege). Scale: 2 cm.