Pogonophora from the Northeastern Pacific: First Records from the 
Gulf of Tehuantepec, Mexico 
Oluwafeyisola S. Adegoke 1 
Northeastern Pacific records of species of 
the Phylum Pogonophora Johansson, 1937 are 
few. In all, eight species have been recorded. 
The first was by Kirkegaard (1956^, 1961) 
who described Lamellisabella ivanovi from the 
Gulf of Panama. In two successive records, 
Ivanov (1961, 1962) described Galathealinum 
brachiosum, and Heptabrachia ctenophora and 
H. canadensis , respectively, from the west coasts 
of Canada and Oregon. Hartman (1961) re- 
corded abundant occurrences of Siboglinum 
veleronis Hartman from the La Jolla Canyon 
off the coast of southern California. Southward 
(1962) next described Galathealinum arcticum 
from Arctic waters off the northern coast of 
Yukon, Alaska; and more recently, Cutler 
(1965) described two new species of Sibog- 
linum, S. albatrossianum and S. ecuadoricum, 
and an undetermined specimen, from collec- 
tions dredged off Cape San Francisco, Ecuador, 
by the U. S. Fish Commission steamer "Alba- 
tross” in 1888. 
The occurrences of a few dark-brown, cylin- 
drical collar segments, measuring about 2.9- 
4.0 mm across, and 3.3 mm long, from West 
Cortes, East Cortes, and Long Basins, and from 
the San Diego Trench, were recorded by Hart- 
man and Barnard (I960). These were later 
referred to the genus Galathealinum Kirke- 
gaard, 1956 by Hartman (1961:546), who 
also mentioned a new record of another species 
of Siboglinum closely resembling S. veleronis 
from "Velero IV” Station 7231, off San 
Eugenio Point, Lower California, Mexico. 
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 
The materials on which this study is based 
were made available to the author by the kind 
permission of Professor J. Wyatt Durham and 
1 Department of Paleontology, University of Cali- 
fornia, Berkeley, California. Present address: Cali- 
fornia Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California. 
Manuscript received April 18, 1966. 
Mr. J. H. Peck, Jr. of the Museum of Paleon- 
tology, University of California, Berkeley. The j 
author is grateful to Dr. Gwyn Thomas of the j 
Geology Department, Imperial College, Lon- 
don, for calling his attention to the fact that 
the specimens might represent an undescribed j 
species, and to Professor H. A. Lowenstam of ; 
the California Institute of Technology, Pasa- 
dena, for his critical reading of the manuscript 
and for his many helpful suggestions. The 
illustrations were prepared by the writer and 
Jurrie J. van der Woude of the California 
Institute of Technology. The author’s wife, [; 
Adekunbi Adegoke, assisted in preparing the 
manuscript. 
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MATERIAL STUDIED 
The new species, Galathealinum mexicanum | 
sp. nov., described below is the fourth species j 
to be described in the genus Galathealinum . It 
was dredged by the Vermillion Sea Expedition I 
(1958) from a depth of 3531-3603 m in the ! 
Gulf of Tehuantepec, Mexico (Univ. Calif, j 
Mus. Paleo. locality B-7469). It is the first 
pogonophoran record from the Gulf of Te- 1 
huantepec. 
Only the dried remains of the tubes are 1 
preserved. These dark brown tubes are thick- I 
walled and rigid, and have preserved their true ' 
cylindrical shape. They taper slightly and uni- 
formly, have an average diameter of over 
2.0 mm, and are prominently subdivided along j 
the entire length into segments, each about 
twice as long as the average diameter of the 1 
tube. The exterior of the tubes is covered by a 
thin, feltlike layer composed of fine and coarse 
fibers. The coarse fibers are more prominent j 1 
and more numerous near segmental junctions. 
These characters place this species within the 
genus Galathealinum as defined by Kirkegaard 
(1956) and Ivanov (1963). 
Although most Recent pogonophoran genera 
and species are established primarily on the 
188 
