POLYCHAETE WORMS, PART 1 37 



lateral borders and completely encii'cling the first pair of elj^tra (the 

 color variety of H. hartmanae) . 



Biology. — A ubiquitous species, one of the most common and 

 abundant polynoids in all northern waters, found both intertidally 

 and dredged in the Arctic, North Atlantic, and North Pacific. Inter- 

 tidally, found clinging to rough surfaces of stones; in cracks and 

 crevices; in rocky tide pools with algae and cavities of sponges; in 

 roots and eelgrass (Zostera) , and sea basketgrass (PhT/llospadix) ; in 

 holdfasts and on fronds of kelp (as Laminaria), under encrusting 

 calcareous algae, on pilings, wharves, submerged wood work, among 

 bryozoans, hydroids, tunicates, barnacles, and mussels. One of the 

 most abundant polychaetes of the oceanographic fouling studies in the 

 New England region. Dredged on all types of bottoms — on bottoms 

 of mud, sand, and rock and various combinations of shell, rock, gravel, 

 mud, and sand; among brown, red, and gi-een algae (often tending to 

 match in coloration the algae on which it is found) ; among mussels, 

 sponges, barnacles, bryozoans, hydroids, tunicates, and sand dollars; 

 and in and among old worm tubes. 



Found living commensally with other polychaetes, as the terebel- 

 Hds Thelepus crispus Johnson (Washington, Pettibone, 1953) and 

 Amphitrite robusta (Johnson) (British Columbia, Berkeley and Berke- 

 ley, 1948) and the onuphid Diopatra ornata Moore (Washington, 

 Pettibone, 1953). Found with hermit crabs occupying snail shells, 

 the polynoid often found in the apex of the shell (Carr Inlet, Puget 

 Sound, Washington, 10 fathoms, associated with Pagurus ochotensis 

 Brandt inside a shell of Polinices lewisii (Gould), J. E. Lynch; Ber- 

 ing Sea, 33 fathoms. Albatross Station 3303, found in apex of shell). 

 Also found in the ambulacral groove of the asteroid Asterias amurensis 

 Lutken (Japan, Okuda, 1936). 



Attached to various parts of the dorsal surface under the elytra of 

 adult females, the eggs and various stages up to advanced trocho- 

 phores may be found clumped together like a loose bunch of grapes 

 by a transparent mucous secretion. Eggs or larvae under the elytra 

 found in Japan during March and April (Izuka, 1912), in Washington 

 in June, July, August (Pettibone, 1953), in central California in 

 June (Hartman, 1944b), in Norway in February and March (M. 

 Sars, 1845, as Polynoe cirrafa), in Denmark in January (Rasmussen, 

 1956), in Iceland in April and May (Saemundsson, 1918), in Britain 

 in February to May (Mcintosh, 1900) and in December (Newell, 

 1954), in Ireland in March (Southern, 1914), in New Hampshire in 

 February and April (Fort Stark, 1954, February 15 and April 1 and 

 7, Pettibone). In the Woods Hole region, Massachusetts, females 

 of presumably this species {"Harmothoe sp."— could also be H. ex- 

 tenuata) found with pink eggs inside the body from mid-April through 



