POLYCHAETOUS ANNELIDS 



Part V. Eunicea 



(Plates 1-18) 



By Olga Hartman 



ALLAN HANCOCK FOUNDATION 



The superfamily Eunicea (herein considered to include six families, 

 p. 2) comprises one of the most diversified yet most closely allied among 

 the numerous families of the order Polychaeta. More than any other 

 group, save perhaps the elytral-bearing chaetopods including the polynoids 

 and their relatives, they are related to one another by characters of unique 

 distinction. These, however, are largely internal, som.e of the most signifi- 

 cant being in the proboscidial armature. Externally the Eunicea dififer 

 from one another so w^idely that their aflSnities might not be surmised, as, 

 for example, among species of the genera Diopatra and Lumbrineris. 



The distinguished Scottish zoologist, W. C. Mcintosh (1910, pp. 

 343-352), has given a summarized account of the extensive studies de- 

 voted to this superfamily. Some of the earliest accounts M^ere made by 

 several renowned French scientists, including Savigny (1809), who 

 erected the family and several genera; Blainville (1825 and 1828), whose 

 classification was more detailed but based on unnatural affinities (placing 

 genera from widely related families in the same category) ; and Audouin 

 and M. Edwards (1834), who divided the group into 2 great divisions, 

 the abranchiate and the branchiate. This last-named plan was later fol- 

 lowed by Johnston (1865), Quatrefages (1865), and others. 



The system by Kinberg (1865) was based, not on branchial and cir- 

 ral structures, but on proboscidial parts. It recognized 10 families in the 

 superfamily Eunicea and proposed many new genera. Ehlers (1868) 

 greatly elaborated the then known schemes, recognized only one family, 

 the Eunicidae, instead of 10, but proposed the erection of 2 major groups: 

 (1) the Eunice labidognatha and (2) the Eunice prionognatha. Grube 

 later (1878, p. 55) recognized 3 main groups in the Eunicea; this was 

 an elaboration of the systems of Kinberg and Ehlers, but with change in 

 emphasis such that the main groups were the Labidognatha Ehlers, the 

 Lu?nbriconereidea Schmarda, and the Staurocephalidea Kinberg. The 

 Labidognatha included the Onuphaea, Eunicea, and Lysidicea of Kin- 

 berg, but excluded Lumbriconereis and Ninoe; the Lumbriconereidea in- 

 cluded 5 families of Kinberg, the Ninoidea, Lumbriconereidea, Oeno- 



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