November, 1999 
SCAMIT Newsletter 
Vol. 18, No. 7 
Leslie circulated some books she had 
purchased at the Monterey Bay Aquarium: The 
Ambonese Curiosity Cabinet: George 
Everhardus Rumphius by E.M. Beekman, The 
Deep Sea by Bruce Robison and Judith 
Connor, Deep-Ocean Journeys: Discovering 
New Life at the Bottom of the Sea by Cindy 
Lee Van Dover, and Mysteries of the Deep: 
Exploring Life in the Deep Sea by Christina 
Joie Slager. 
To start off the Bight’98 discussion, Rick Rowe 
passed around a list of his Bight’98 polychaete 
voucher specimens as of October 22,1999. He 
next told us about a specimen of Armandia he 
found that doesn’t fit the description of 
Armandia brevis. The specimen was collected 
from San Miguel Island (Station 2476) on 
August 11, 1998 from a depth of 11 meters. 
Rick’s specimen had 39 setigers (A. brevis has 
29/30 setigers), branchiae from setigers 2 to 39, 
and lateral eyespots on setigers 5 to 35/36 (A. 
brevis has eyespots to setiger 20). Leslie 
brought out a Master’s thesis on A. brevis by 
Sharon Hampton from Sonoma State 
University (Hampton 1997). There was no 
mention of specimens with variant 
characteristics like Rick’s specimen. We 
referred to this specimen as Armandia sp SD 1. 
We next viewed a specimen of Nephtys brought 
in by Rick Rowe. It was collected from 
Anacapa Island (Station 2476) on August 4, 
1998 from a depth of 21 meters. It was a small 
specimen which keyed out to N. parva. 
A Lacydonia from Ron Velarde was up next for 
examination. It was collected from San Miguel 
Island (Station 2480) on July 21,1998 from a 
depth of 106 meters. We compared it to L. 
hampsoni Blake, 1994 described in the MMS 
Atlas. Ron’s specimen had some different 
characters, most obvious were the large, dark 
eyes. Another difference was that L. hampsoni 
occurs in deep water (985-1990 meters). We 
referred to Ron’s specimen as Lacydonia sp SD 
1 . 
Concurrently with the examination of the 
previous specimens, attendees were treated to 
Leslie’s slide show of living polychaetes (and 
some nudibranchs) from the British Virgin 
Islands. She had set up an automated slide 
show on her labtop computer for us to enjoy 
while we waited to view specimens at the 
microscope. 
After lunch the discussion turned to 
Dipolydora. We talked about the character 
differences between Dipolydora bidentata and 
D. sp SD 1. The main difference is where the 
branchiae start. This lead to a discussion about 
how we identify D. bidentata. Most of us 
have been identifying D. bidentata using the 
setiger where branchiae start (setiger 8) and the 
morphology of the modified spines on setiger 
5. Other characters defining D. bidentata are 
present in the posterior of the worm (needle 
packets and unidentate hooks) which we rarely 
get in the sample. Some people commented 
that they have never seen the needle packets or 
unidentate hooks on specimens they identified 
as D. bidentata. For incomplete specimens of 
Dipolydora , the only character separating D. 
bidentata and D. sp SD 1 is where the 
branchiae start. The question arose whether 
this is a good character to separate species or if 
it is within the range of variation for this 
species. We agreed to closely examine our 
complete specimens of D. bidentata and look 
specifically for the needle packets and 
unidentate hooks in the posterior. There’s a 
possibility that what we’ve been calling D. 
bidentata is really a different species. This will 
again be a topic at a future SCAMIT meeting. 
Next Cheryl Brantley brought forth a cirratulid 
collected off the Palos Verdes shelf (Station 
0D) on July 8, 1998 from a depth of 30 meters. 
The anterior end looked similar to Chaetozone 
bansei, but on closer examination, it turned out 
to be a Cirriformia. A species identity could 
not be determined, so we left the identification 
at Cirriformia sp. 
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