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Redescription of a brooding nemertine, Cyanophthalma obscura (Schultze) gen. et comb.n., with observations on its biology and discussion of the species of Prostomatella and related taxa * †
Author(s) -
NORENBURG JON
Publication year - 1986
Publication title -
zoologica scripta
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.204
H-Index - 64
eISSN - 1463-6409
pISSN - 0300-3256
DOI - 10.1111/j.1463-6409.1986.tb00229.x
Subject(s) - biology , genus , zoology , type species , taxon , arenicola , salt marsh , type (biology) , ecology
A new genus, Cyanophthalma , is erected with the type species Tetrastemma obscura Schultze, 1851. Cyanophthalma obscura is transferred from Prostomatella and is redescribed from observations of more than 300 living specimens and serial sections of 59 specimens from the northeast coast of North America. Comparison is made with serial sections of C. obscura from the Baltic and with serially sectioned specimens of three other described species of Prostomatella. Two of these, P. enteroplecta and P. merula , do not fit either genus and are provisionally placed in the aggregate genus Tetrastemma, whose present diagnosis they do fit. Prostomatella remains with only its type species, P. arenicola. Amphiporus cordiceps is also transferred to Cyanophthalma. Some of the characters that form the basis for classifying Monostilifera are assessed for phylogenetic significance. Cyanophthalma obscura in Nova Scotia lives in salt marshes. Young are brooded through the winter while ice covers most of the marsh.