Laetmonice cf. producta sensu Hutchings & McRae, 1993

Gunton, Laetitia M., Kupriyanova, Elena K., Alvestad, Tom, Avery, Lynda, Blake, James A., Biriukova, Olga, Boeggemann, Markus, Borisova, Polina, Budaeva, Nataliya, Burghardt, Ingo, Capa, Maria, Georgieva, Magdalena N., Glasby, Christopher J., Hsueh, Pan-Wen, Hutchings, Pat, Jimi, Naoto, Kongsrud, Jon A., Langeneck, Joachim, Meissner, Karin, Murray, Anna, Nikolic, Mark, Paxton, Hannelore, Ramos, Dino, Schulze, Anja, Sobczyk, Robert, Watson, Charlotte, Wiklund, Helena, Wilson, Robin S., Zhadan, Anna & Zhang, Jinghuai, 2021, Annelids of the eastern Australian abyss collected by the 2017 RV ' Investigator' voyage, ZooKeys 1020, pp. 1-198 : 1

Laetmonice cf. producta sensu Hutchings & McRae, 1993

Diagnosis.

Large-bodied specimen, body shape elongate,> twice as long as maximum width. Dorsal felt of fine notochaetae absent, 18 pairs elytra with purple colouration on inner halves. Prostomium with pair of large ocular peduncles, without eye pigment; facial tubercle well-developed, with long conical papillae; small nuchal flaps present. Palps extending to segment 11, margins finely papillate. Median antenna with ceratophore half the length of the prostomium; antennal ceratostyle longer than prostomium, slender, clavate-tipped, 3 × length of prostomium. Notochaetae of three kinds: ~ 15 smooth, golden, unidentate acicular chaetae; ~ ten long, stout, yellow brown harpoon-like chaetae with 3-5 recurved fangs below tips, shafts smooth or tuberculate; tuft of short, fine mud-covered capillary chaetae ventrally. Neurochaetae in two tiers: superior tier of yellow acicular chaetae with basal spur and subdistal fringe of long hairs and bare tips, inferior tier with numerous golden bipinnate neurochaetae. Ventrum covered with small papillae.

Remarks.

This specimen agrees well with the description of other Australian specimens assigned to Laetmonice producta Grube, 1877 by Hutchings & McRae (1993), who stated that the species displayed much morphological variability and had a broad distribution. Grube originally described L. producta from the area of the Kerguelen Islands in the Southern Ocean. McIntosh (1885, 1900) described several “varieties” of L. producta , ranging from the Azores to Antarctic waters, most of which were subsequently raised to species level by Chamberlin (1919). However, Hartman (1965) suggested that the variety represented by Grube’s original species (now known as the subspecies L. producta producta , see Read and Fauchald 2020) was restricted in distribution to the area of Kerguelen Islands, the South Georgia Islands and the Antarctic Peninsula. The records from southeastern Australian waters were assigned to L. producta by Hutchings and McRae (1993) because they were unable to examine the type specimens of McIntosh’s “varieties”, and they suggest that it may possibly belong to another new species. The specimen examined herein differs from L. producta producta Grube, 1877 by the number of elytra (18, not 20 pairs), the lack of eye pigment, smaller nuchal flaps, and the shafts of the harpoon notochaetae which may be smooth or finely granulated. Live specimens are usually pale, with a longitudinal purple stripe mid-dorsally.

Records.

1 specimen. Suppl. material 1: op. 14 (AM).