﻿PROCEEDINGS OF THE UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



issued l^,iiS-ct- V'-wS ^y '^* 



SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION 



U. S. NATIONAL MUSEUM 



Vol. 102 Washington: 1952 No. 3306 



THE SIPUNCULID WORMS OF CALIFORNIA AND BAJA 



CALIFORNIA 



By Walter Kenrick Fisher 



SiPUNCULiD is the name informally bestowed on members of a smaU 

 phylum of marine wormlike animals of world-wide distribution — the 

 Sipunculoidea.* These creatures live from the intertidal zone to 

 oceanic depths, in tubular excavations in mud and sand, in clefts of 

 rocks, in masses of coral, in borrowed shells, under rocks, in holdfasts 

 of kelp, or in almost any protected situation that affords access to 

 reasonably clear water and food. The}^ are not found in shifting 

 sand or mud, since in such habitats they are likely to be buried or 

 else deprived of protection. Their food is finely divided detritus 

 selected or trapped by the ciliated tentacles, or bottom material 

 actively swallowed. This latter material is not necessarily finely 

 divided. It is sometimes coarse, including the miscellaneous small 

 fragments of the hard parts of Foraminifera, corals, bryozoans, an- 

 nelids, moUusks, echinoderms, and crustaceans, often very abundant, 

 especially in calcareous sands. 



I Adam Sedgwick, In his "Students' Textbook of Zoology" (voL 1, p. 591, 1898), first accorded this grouj) 

 phyletic rank. It had long occupied in the Annelida the position of a poor relation, as one of the orders of 

 the class Qephyrea, in which Quiitrefages also placed the Echiuroidea and Priapuloidea. "Qcphyrea" 

 either as a class or a phylum is an imnatural and unsatisfactory association, but one which has been sLngn- 

 larly viable. It was used by Shipley (1910) in the "Cambridge Natural History" and by Borradaile and 

 Potts (1932) in "The Invertebrata" — to mention two instances. For a good general account, consult Grace 

 E. Pickford, "Sipunculida," Encyclopedia Brittanica, 1917; J. W. Spengel, Handworterbuch dor Natur- 

 wissenschaften, vol. 9, pp. 97-106, 1913; Yves Delage and Edgard H6rouard, Trait6 de Zoologie Concrete, vol. 

 5, pp. 12-26, 1897; F. Baltxer, "Sipunoulida"; Kiikenthal and Krumbach's "H.«indbuch der Zoologie," vol. 

 2, pt. 9, pp. 15-61, 1931. 



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