Terebella Linnaeus, 1767

Londoño-Mesa, Mario H., 2009, Terebellidae (Polychaeta: Terebellida) from the Grand Caribbean region 2320, Zootaxa 2320 (1), pp. 1-93 : 63

Terebella Linnaeus, 1767

Hessle, 1917:187–188, Tex-Fig. 45.— Day, 1967:747.— Holthe, 1986a:93.— Capa & Hutchings, 2006:20.

Synonyms: Heterophyselia de Quatrefages, 1866 ; Heteroterebella de Quatrefages, 1865 ; Leprea Malmgren, 1866 ; Schmardanella McIntosh, 1885 .

Type species: Terebella lapidaria Linnaeus, 1767 , by monotypy.

Diagnosis: Branchiae on segment 2–3 or 2–4; lateral lappets absent; eyespots sometimes present; ventral shields from segment 2; nephridial papillae on segments 3–4, and on variable number from segments 5 or 6; variable number of pairs of notopodia from segment 4; chaetae distally serrated; neuropodia from segment 5; uncini avicular in single rows from segment 5 usually to segment 10; in double rows, arranged face to face, until segment 20 or sometimes to end of body.

Remarks: It is difficult to give a precise diagnosis for the genus, because of the mixture of characters presented by the currently accepted species in the genus. Some characters considered stable in other genera, such as the number of pairs of branchiae and the number of segments on which they are present, number of nephridial papillae, number of pairs of notopodia, and number of pairs of neuropodia with uncini in double rows, among others, are variable in Terebella species. Capa and Hutchings (2006) reported “ Terebella ” cf. Terebella gorgonae with material from Panamanian Pacific, having uncini in double rows arranged back to back. I consider this character stable in the subfamily and even in the genus, presenting uncini face to face. It could be possible that such material from Panama or even the species belong to another genus. As these authors state, “ further studies [will] resolve the consistency of this character within the genus ”. Thus, a revision of the genus is required in order to better delineate its morphological boundaries and species composition.

The genus has 26 valid species ( Holthe, 1986b), but no valid species have been described originally from the Grand Caribbean region. Perkins and Savage (1975) listed 15 species identified in the region, from which only two belong to this genus, T. pterochaeta Schmarda, 1861 , from South Africa, and T. rubra ( Verrill, 1873) , from Vineyard Sound ( Salazar-Vallejo, 1996). Since Holthe (1986b) referred T. rubra to T. verrilli , a new name by secondary homonymy, Londoño-Mesa and Carrera-Parra (2005) reported this species in the Mexican Caribbean . This study expands the distribution of T. verrilli . On the other hand, T. turgidula Ehlers, 1887 , from Florida, was synonymized with Eupolymnia crassicornis by Augener (1925); nevertheless, the former has chaetae that are distally serrated, while the latter has chaetae smooth. So, with T. turgidula being regarded as valid, and being different from T. verrilli , the Grand Caribbean has two valid species of this genus.