Sabellastarte Krøyer, 1856

Knight-Jones, Phyllis & Mackie, Andrew S. Y., 2003, A revision of Sabellastarte (Polychaeta: Sabellidae), Journal of Natural History 37 (19), pp. 2269-2301 : 2272

Genus Sabellastarte Krøyer, 1856

Although Krøyer (1856: 13) was the first to regularize Savigny’s (1822) tribe Sabellae Astartae to Sabellastarte , he added nothing to its diagnosis. Grube (1870b: 340) was the first to suggest that the crown radioles, described by Savigny as arising in ‘two equal parallel rows’, actually constituted ‘a single row directed alternately to the outside and the inside’ (here termed interdigitated). He also added a character, ‘thoracic tori with a single row of hooks’ (i.e. companion chaetae absent). Interdigitated radioles are not unique to Sabellastarte . They can be found in mature specimens of large species of other genera (e.g. Demonax medius Bush , see Perkins, 1984). Moreover, two smaller species which lack interdigitations ( S. sanctijosephi and S. samoensis ) can be included in Sabellastarte .

Abbreviated diagnoses of Sabellastarte were given in Fauvel (1953), Day (1967) and Fauchald (1977), the genus being distinguished from other members of the Sabellinae through the absence of three characters. Fitzhugh (1989) provided a more comprehensive diagnosis of the genus, but noted that Sabellastarte ‘does not appear to be a definable genus based on the characters examined’. Further generic characters were given briefly when comparing Pseudobranchiomma with Sabellastarte (see Knight-Jones, 1994) and others are included here. Characters typical of the genus, but not unique, are printed in bold in the diagnosis.