Arias, Andrés ; Anadón, Nuria  ; Paxton, Hannelore. 2010. New records of Diopatra marocensis (Annelida: Onuphidae) from northern Spain. Zootaxa 2691: 67-68.

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Publication

http://www.mapress.com/zootaxa/2010/f/zt02691p068.pdf

Open access

[none – begins] Several recent publications have demonstrated that Diopatra neapolitana Delle Chiaje, 1841 is not the only European representative of the onuphid polychaete genus Diopatra Audouin and Milne-Edwards, 1833 as had been previously accepted: Diopatra marocensis Paxton et al., 1995, only known from its type locality, the Moroccan Atlantic coast, was reported by Rodrigues et al. (2009) as coexisting with D. neapolitana in a number of sites on the Portuguese coast; Berke et al. (2010) reported an undescribed species as D. sp. A from France; and Pires et al. (2010) described D. micrura Pires et al., 2010, bringing the number of European Diopatra species to four. Here we are presenting the first record of D. marocensis in Spanish waters – the Bay of Biscay – constituting the northernmost distribution for this species, where it occurs sympatrically with D. neapolitana. We are giving brief notes on the relative abundance of the two species at the new locality, compare the depths and substrate preferences of D. marocensis at its Moroccan, Portuguese and Spanish collecting sites, and report the presence of Epistylis sp., a peritricous protozoan on the gills of D. marocensis, presenting a newly recorded symbiotic association.

North Atlantic

Polychaeta

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