Hololepida oculata Hartman 1967

”Hololepida oculata, new species

(Plate 5)

Record: 19:1 sta. 1346 (1, TYPE).

Description: A fragmented specimen in three pieces, presumably parts of a single individual, with head but without tail end, measures 60 mm long, 7 mm wide without, 15 mm with, parapodia, and 23 mm wide with setae, at greatest width; it consists of at least 37 segments; the tail is missing. Elytra have been lost but are inserted as typical of Harmothoe, that is, on setigerous segments 2, 4, 5, 7, and on alternate seg­ments to 23; they may number 15 pairs. The dorsum is slaty black and a similar pigment covers the projecting proboscis and the nephridial pa­pillae; the ventrum is paler gray, as is also the anterior part of the prostomium; parapodia are pale and setae are light yellow, and eyes are black with large white lenses. The prostomium (Fig. A) is broadly oval, has a large median antennal base from which the style has been lost; it extends back into the prostomium to near its midlength. Paired antennae are represented only by their bases, which are slenderer than that of the median antenna. The four eyes are large, black, with white circular lenses; the anterior pair is at the widest part of the lobe, and the posterior pair is at postectal margins of the lobe. A large nuchal mem­brane extends forward as a flap over the prostomium (Fig. A).

The first segment is reduced to a pair of parapodial bases directed forward at the sides of the prostomium; a thick spine emerges near the distal end of the cirrophore. The second segment is the first with normal parapodia. Typically notopodia are reduced to a long, slender acicular lobe over the neuropodium with a small fascicle of very slender setae in anterior segments; a slender yellow aciculum penetrates the slender lobe and a slender fleshy lobe extends beyond its emergence. The dorsal cirrus is a long, filiform cirrus directed laterally and extending distally beyond the neurosetae (Fig. B). Neuropodia are much larger, have linear series of long setae directed laterally, and are penetrated by a single yellow aciculum which projects from the slender acicular lobe. Neurosetae are of two kinds; a supra-acicular fascicle has 6 to 10 slenderer setae, dis­tally entire and laterally nearly smooth; the subacicular fascicle has about 40 knifelike setae, the longest above, the shortest below; all are distally bifid (Fig. C) with the main tooth falcate and the secondary tooth straight and shorter; the cutting edge is weakly serrated along its free length.

Nephridial papillae occur at the inner bases of neuropodia, a pair to a segment; each is dark brown, subcylindrical.

Distribution: Pacific Antarctic Ridge, in 549 in.”

(Hartman, 1967)