Amphisamytha Hessle 1917
- Dataset
- Four new species of Ampharetidae (Annelida: Polychaeta) from Pacific hot vents and cold seeps, with a key and synoptic table of characters for all genera
- Rank
- GENUS
Classification
- kingdom
- Animalia
- phylum
- Annelida
- class
- Polychaeta
- order
- Terebellida
- family
- Ampharetidae
- genus
- Amphisamytha
description
In his review of the Ampharetidae, Jirkov (2001) considers Amphisamytha as a junior synonym of Phyllocomus. His reasoning is not completely clear to us and we therefore decided to use the classical systematics from Day (1964) and Holthe (1986 a, 2001).
discussion
Remarks: The different interpretation of abdominal structures referred to as rudimentary notopodia, glandular pads or glandular rudimentary notopodia is confusing in this genus. Hessle (1917) erected the genus Amphisamytha for A. bioculata (Moore, 1906) and the type species A. japonica Hessle, 1917 - which have, according to Hessle, distinct abdominal rudimentary notopodia, a character later confirmed by Day (1964). The other species known so far, Amphisamytha galapagensis Zottoli, 1983 a, and Amphisamytha fauchaldi Solís-Weiss & Hernández-Alcántara, 1994, both described from Pacific hot vents, have been included in the genus although they do not have abdominal rudimentary notopodia. Instead, they are described as having glandular pads, an ad hoc expression coined by Zottoli (1983 a) in order to describe puffy structures above the abdominal neuropodia. Indeed, the interpretation of the glandular pads as rudimentary neuropodia seems to be doubtful as our examination of the respective holotypes showed. The term " glandular pads " is also used in the description of Amathys lutzi Desbruyères & Laubier, 1996, the only ampharetid species currently known from Atlantic hot vents that shares many traits with Amphisamytha.
materials_examined
Type species: Amphisamytha japonica Hessle, 1917 Synonym: Mooresamytha Williams, 1987: 256 – 257. Generic diagnosis (emended): Prostomium without glandular ridges. Buccal tentacles smooth. Four pairs of cirriform branchiae. Segment II without chaetae. Thorax with 17 chaetigers and 14 uncinigers. No modified segment. Glandular pads above abdominal neuropodia.