Read, Geoffrey B. (2001). A first non-tropical Southern Hemisphere occurrence of 'Syllis ramosa,' the rare branching polychaete commensal of sponges, together with its swimming stolons, in a Tasman Sea deep-sea hexactinellid. [Conference Poster, unpublished]. 7th International Polychaete conference, 2-6 July, 2001, Reykjavík Iceland.

487063

Read, Geoffrey B.

2001

7th International Polychaete conference, 2-6 July, 2001, Reykjavík Iceland

Publication

Annelidabase. Not online except here at WoRMS

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Biologists have been intrigued by the evolutionary curiosity that is Syllis ramosa ever since 1879, when W. C. McIntosh described a strange Philippines deepwater syllid that had innumerable branches and was growing inside a hexactinellid sponge rather in the manner of a parasitic plant or fungus. There have been only a handful of subsequent records, and only from the equatorial western Pacific or from Japanese seas (to about 35 degrees N). Here I describe the first non-tropical Southern Hemisphere occurrence (35 degrees S) of a similar syllid, possibly identical to Syllis ramosa, present with numerous unattached natatory stolons in a sponge collected from the sea bottom at 1079 m in the mid Tasman Sea between New Zealand and Australia.

New Zealand

Biology
Reproduction

Annelida
Polychaeta

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