A REVISION OF SABELLASTARTE (SABELLIDA: SABELLINAE) WITH COMMENTS ON PSEUDOBRANCHIOMMA
Knight-Jones, Phyllis 1 & Mackie, A. S. Y. 2
1School of Biological Sciences, University of Wales Swansea, SA2 8PP, Wales, U.K.
2Department of Biodiversity & Systematic Biology, National Museum of Wales, Cathays Park, Cardiff CF1 3NP, Wales, U.K.
Sabellastarte indica Savigny, 1822 ('Indian Ocean') is the type of the genus but the name is preoccupied. It has been suggested that the name Sabellastarte sanctjosephi (Gravier, 1906) should take its place, but older names with more suitable characters have been ignored. Type material or material from type areas show that Sabellastarte species falls into at least two groups. A) large species with a vestigial web at the axils of the crown radioles:- Sabellastarte magnifica (Shaw 1800), Jamaica; S. spectabilis (Grube,1878) Philippines; S. australiensis (Haswell, 1884), New South Wales; S. japonica (Marenzeller, 1884), Japan; and B) smaller species with a relatively deep radiolar web: S. samoensis (Grube, 1870), Samoa; S. sanctijosephi (Gravier, 1906), Red Sea; and S. punctata (Treadwell, 1906), Hawaii. Another group of species some of which had been regarded as Sabellastarte was recently put into Pseudobranchiomma. These are also discussed.