Travisia Johnston, 1840

Wiklund, Helena, Neal, Lenka, Glover, Adrian G., Drennan, Regan, Muriel Rabone, & Dahlgren, Thomas G., 2019, Abyssal fauna of polymetallic nodule exploration areas, eastern Clarion-Clipperton Zone, central Pacific Ocean: Annelida: Capitellidae, Opheliidae, Scalibregmatidae, and Travisiidae, ZooKeys 883, pp. 1-82 : 1

Travisia Johnston, 1840

Notes.

These distinctive, grub-like polychaetes with rugose epidermis were first described by Johnston (1840) with the discovery of Travisia forbesii Johnston, 1840. Later, Kinberg (1866) established the genus Dindymenes and Chamberlin (1919) established the genus Kesun , which he differentiated from Travisia by the complete absence of branchiae. Following a cladistic analysis of morphological characters, Dauvin and Bellan (1994) synonymized Kesun and Dindymenides with Travisia and recognized at least 27 species. Important species-level characters include the presence of lobes, the position and relative size of the nephridiopores, and the total number of chaetigers, which appears to be stable in most, but not all, species ( Dauvin and Bellan 1994).

The higher taxonomic position of Travisia has been in dispute for some time. While usually placed in Opheliidae , its relationship with Scalibregmatidae has also been long suggested ( Ashworth 1902), mainly due to possession of rugose epidermis. Hartmann-Schröder (1971) created a subfamily, Travisiinae, in Opheliidae to accommodate Travisia . More recently, phylogenetic analyses were employed to answer this question. Persson and Pleijel (2005) used molecular data to recover Travisia nested within the Scalibregmatidae , and molecular analysis of Paul et al. (2010) rejected affinity with Opheliidae and found strong support sister-group relationship of Travisia and Scalibregmatidae . Law et al. (2014) again placed Travisia within Scalibregmatidae using molecular data. However, Blake and Maciolek (2016) proposed a new family, Travisiidae , to accommodate Travisia .

Travisia species have predominantly deep-water distribution ( Blake and Maciolek 2016) and two species, one of them very abundant, were found in UKSR material.