Abstract
Sipunculans are a poorly studied group in the Tropical Eastern Pacific. For the Southern Mexican Pacific (SMP) there is only one record of a sipunculan species. The main objective of this work was to determine the species composition of the phylum Sipuncula present in the SMP. The study area covered three Mexican states: Guerrero, Oaxaca and Chiapas; specimens from 28 localities were examined from both intertidal and subtidal zones. A total of 551 specimens were reviewed, from which 11 species were identified. Five of them have previously been recorded in the Tropical Eastern Pacific (TEP): Apionsoma (A.) hespera comb. nov., A. (Edmondsius) pectinatum, Aspidosiphon (A.) elegans, Phascolosoma (P.) puntarenae and Themiste (T.) hennahi; four species are similar to nominal species: Sipunculus (S.) cf. polymyotus, Siphonosoma cf. vastum, Siphonosoma cf. cumanense and Phascolosoma (P.) cf. perlucens; and two new species are described: Aspidosiphon (Paraspidosiphon) cutleri sp. nov. and Aspidosiphon (Paraspidosiphon) pastori sp. nov. A checklist and an identification key for all sipunculan species from the TEP are presented. The checklist includes 53 taxa, 25 of which are questionable records. This work generated 11 new records of sipunculans in the SMP and five new records in the TEP.
Highlights
Sipunculans are a small group of unsegmented vermiform, coelomate and protostome marine worms (Cutler 1994; Murina 1984) and are considered close to or even within the annelid group (Staton 2003; European Journal of Taxonomy 740: 77–117 (2021)Struck et al 2007; Dordel et al 2010)
Five of them have previously been recorded in the Tropical Eastern Pacific (TEP): Apionsoma (A.) hespera comb. nov., A. (Edmondsius) pectinatum, Aspidosiphon (A.) elegans, Phascolosoma (P.) puntarenae and Themiste (T.) hennahi; four species are similar to nominal species: Sipunculus (S.) cf. polymyotus, Siphonosoma cf. vastum, Siphonosoma cf. cumanense and Phascolosoma (P.) cf. perlucens; and two new species are described: Aspidosiphon (Paraspidosiphon) cutleri sp. nov. and Aspidosiphon (Paraspidosiphon) pastori sp. nov
The specimens were deposited in the Sipunculan Section of the Scientific Collection with the accession number OAX-CC-249-11 of the Laboratorio de Sistemática de Invertebrados Marinos, Universidad del Mar (UMAR), campus Puerto Ángel, Oaxaca, Mexico
Summary
Struck et al 2007; Dordel et al 2010). They are commonly known as ‘peanut worms’ or ‘star worms’ (Schulze et al 2019), and they have a body divided in a retractable introvert and trunk. The phylum has included two classes, four orders, six families and 17 genera (Cutler & Gibbs 1985; Gibbs & Cutler 1987) but Kawauchi et al (2012) proposed a new classification based on a molecular phylogenetic analysis. The new classification includes six families and 16 genera, leaving out the classes and orders
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