Two new species of serpulid polychaetes from the Barents Sea

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Abstract

Although Scandinavian Arctic polychaete fauna has been extensively investigated, new species are still being found in the Barents Sea. Polychaetes of the family Serpulidae are calcareous tubeworms that are most abundant at low latitudes and less common in Arctic and Antarctic waters. Because recent phylogenetic data indicate that the family Spirorbidae is a clade nested inside Serpulidae, spirorbins are treated here as subfamily Spirorbinae and their traditionally recognized subfamilies are thus lowered to the tribes Paralaeospirini, Spirorbini, Circeini, Romanchellini, Pileolariini and Januini. Here we report two new serpulid species, a filogranin Protis akvaplani sp. n. and a spirorbin Bushiella (Bushiella) barentsii sp. n. collected from off the northern Norwegian coast. Protis akvaplani differs from other species of within the genus by its tube with a high longitudinal keel, six thoracic chaetigerous segments, and short thoracic membranes ending after the 3rd segment. Generic diagnosis of the genus Protis has been emended. Bushiella (B.) barentsii differs from other species of the subgenus Bushiella by morphology of the opercular talon of operculum, incomplete fusing of primary operculum with brood chamber, and large tubes (up to 5 mm in coil diameter) with 1-2 distinct longitudinal ridges.