Armandia Filippi, 1861

Magalhães, Wagner F., Rizzo, Alexandra E. & Bailey-Brock, Julie H., 2019, Opheliidae (Annelida: Polychaeta) from the western Pacific islands, including five new species, Zootaxa 4555 (2), pp. 209-235 : 210

Genus Armandia Filippi, 1861

Type species: Armandia cirrhosa Filippi, 1861: 219 , by monotypy.

Diagnosis (after Parapar & Moreira 2015). Body elongated, not divided into distinct regions; ventral groove and two lateral grooves from chaetiger 2 to posterior end. Segments annulated. Prostomium conical, sometimes with terminal palpode; subdermal eyespots; a pair of large, eversible nuchal organs. Single and cirriform branchiae from chaetiger 2. Sometimes one or several posterior segments abranchiate. Segmental lateral eyes present between parapodia. Parapodia with prechaetal lobe, ventral lobe and sometimes a dorsal cirrus. Noto- and neuropodial lappets absent. Interramal ciliated organ present sometimes. Noto- and neuropodial small fascicles of simple capillary chaetae. Pygidium with conspicuous expansion, anal (pygidial) tube (funnel), of variable shape, usually bearing internally attached midventral cirrus, marginal papillae and sometimes a basal pair of papillae.

Remarks. Parapar & Moreira (2015) provided a more detailed definition of the genus to introduce relevant morphological characters related to the parapodia and anal tube. The authors also confirmed the presence of parapodial ciliated sensorial organs in the parapodial prechaetal lobe. Thirty-seven species of Armandia are currently considered accepted ( Read & Fauchald 2018). Amoureux (1983) provided a list of 20 species and more recently Parapar & Moreira (2015) provided a key to 19 species occurring in the Australasia, Southern Asia and Indo-Malay archipelago later on updated by Moreira & Parapar (2017) to include five more species. Gopal et al. (2016) tabulated 32 species comparing several morphological characteristics including details of the anal tube. Most of the described species of Armandia can be distinguished based on the origin and number of segmental eyes, length of branchiae, number of abranchiate posterior segments, parapodial features (shape of prechaetal lobe, ventral cirrus and presence of dorsal cirrus), and most importantly the features related to the anal cone such as shape and length, presence of ventral incision, number and shape of marginal anal cirri, presence, shape and position of the unpaired ventral cirrus and paired basal cirri.