April, 2000 
SCAMIT Newsletter 
Vol. 18, No.12 
Next, our guest speaker, Sergio Salazar-Vallejo, 
took the floor and gave us a very interesting 
presentation on the work he’s been doing on 
pilargids. Most of his current work is centered 
on faunal studies of Caribbean polychaetes, 
leaving less time then he would like for 
pilargids. Sergio has been working on this 
group since 1986 and is interested in all aspects 
of the group - morphology, life history, 
taxonomy, and phylogeny. Included in the 
newsletter bibliography are Sergio’s 
publications pertaining to pilargids. He had 
prepared packets of handouts ahead of time for 
all the attendees of the meeting. They were 
composites of some of his work as well as 
other authors’ work that compared and 
contrasted different characters among various 
species. Sergio used techniques such as SEM 
and histology to investigate the finer exterior 
and interior structures of pilargids. 
At the end of his presentation, we viewed the 
SEM and histological X-section images on 
Sergio’s laptop computer. There were SEM 
micrographs of Sigambra grubii, Parandalia 
tricuspis, and Loandalia riojai. There were 
also several images of Talehsapia annandalei 
Fauvel 1932, an unusual pilargid that Sergio 
received from Thailand. Previous authors 
(Emerson & Fauchald 1971) considered the 
genus to be incertae sedis and not a member of 
the pilargidae due to the presence of jaws and 
its prostomial features. Cross sections of the 
anterior region of the pharynx revealed a jaw¬ 
like structure on the inside surface. A 
discussion ensued as to whether this was a true 
jaw or a scleratized region that was present on 
the inside of the pharynx. Sergio’s conclusion, 
after examining syllid pharynxes, was that the 
structure had been mis-interpreted by Fauvel 
and was indeed a scleratized region. A similar 
structure was found in an undescribed species 
of Litocorsa from the Gulf of Thailand. 
A recurring problematic topic of local 
polychaete taxonomy has been the variation of 
characters in Pilargis berkeleyae , especially in 
the size and location of papillae, and the extent 
of the glandular material in the dorsal 
cirrophores. Sergio’s handouts included 
illustrations of P. berkeleyae from several 
authors (Monro 1933, Hartman 1947, Wolf 
1984, and Imajima 1987). There was 
considerable variation in the size and location 
of the papillae shown by these authors. In 
order to solve this mystery once and for all, 
Leslie (who has been working on the local 
species) had previously borrowed the holotype 
of Pilargis berkeleyae from the British 
Museum. Included in our packets were 
Leslie’s illustrations of this animal. The 
papillae were extremely small, and only began 
to be visible at 40X magnification. This 
character was consistent in all of the specimens 
Leslie examined, which included topotype 
material sent to Hartman by Edith Berkeley, 
the collector of the holotype. Publications that 
illustrate large papillae on P. berkeleyae (Wolf 
1984, Imajima 1987, and Blake 1997) are 
incorrect; these specimens are probably 
undescribed species. No doubt these 
illustrations have led to mis-identifications for 
many years. Also, many P. berkeleyae have 
been mis-identified as P. maculata. P. 
maculata is an intertidal species, and P. 
berkeleyae inhabits subtidal, soft bottom 
substrata. Nearly all of the P. maculata 
specimens held by LACM and examined by 
Leslie have turned out to be P. berkeleyae. 
Leslie gave some examples of variable 
characters that she noted for P. berkeleyae. 
One was the ratio of lengths of ventral to dorsal 
tentacular cirri; they ranged from 1:3 to 
subequal. Another variable character was the 
length of the dorsal cirrus on setiger 1 
compared to the other dorsal cirri; it ranged 
from 3:1 to subequal. Leslie noted that the 
only consistent character she found in the 
anterior region was that ventral tentacular cirri 
were always basally thinner than the dorsal 
tentacular cirri. 
7 
