Fiege, Dieter; Barnich, Ruth. (2020). A new genus and species of Sternaspidae (Annelida: Polychaeta) from the deep eastern Atlantic. European Journal of Taxonomy. 699: 1-13.
World Polychaeta Database (WPolyDb). Open access article distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0) which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited and indicate if changes were made.
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Based on specimens recently collected in sediments from 2700 m depth off Mauritania (Northwest Africa; type locality) and from 2700–4400 m depth off Angola (Southwest Africa), a new genus and species, Mauretanaspis longichaeta gen. et spec. nov., is described. The new genus and species are characterized by a unique combination of characters: ventro-caudal shield covered by firmly adhering sediment, lateral margins strongly bent and merging into integument; introvert hooks tapering; eight pre-shield segments; absence of peg chaetae; exceptionally long posteriormost lateral chaetae equaling body length; posterior shield chaetae equaling shield length. A comparative table of characters for all currently recognised sternaspid genera and a key to all species with ventro-caudal shield covered by firmly adhering sediment are provided.