Pillai: Serpulid polychaetes from the Australian Kimberleys 
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Figure 5. A-E, Vermiliopsis glandigera Gravier, 1908, figured from two specimens from AM W21470; A and B from first specimen; C-E 
from a second specimen: (A) worm in situ within its tube; ( B ) worm removed from tube showing the transparent partitioned operculum, its 
bulb-shaped basal part, the conspicuous annulus just below the latter, pinnule-free radiolar tips and extent of the thoracic membranes; (Q 
tube; D,E, worm removed from its tube: (D) worm showing distal end of the chitinous part of the operculum contracted into a concavity, 
and bears a small digitiform process in its centre; ( E ) another view of worm showing the transparent distal part of the operculum; the 
large annulus at the distal end of the peduncle has assumed the shape of a ventrally directed projection in alcohol. 
However, there have been problems concerning the 
separation of V. glandigera occurring in the Indo-West 
Pacific from the Mediterranean and North Atlantic species 
V. infundibulum (Philippi), 1844. This has been due to 
recognition of similarities between material originally 
described from the Red Sea as Vermiliopsis glandigerus (= 
Vermiliopsis glandigera ) by Gravier (1908:121) and the type 
species of the genus Vermiliopsis, as stated above, namely, 
Vermiliopsis multivaricosa Morch, 1865 (= V. infundibulum 
Philippi, 1844), but not differences in tube structure. 
Monro (1930: 211) identified material from the Gulf of 
Guinea, off the Northwest Atlantic coast of Africa, as V. 
glandigerus, and thought it probable that V. glandigerus 
Gravier, and a couple of other species “will prove to be 
simple varieties of V. infundibulum .” Subsequently, authors 
working on Vermiliopsis from the Indo-West Pacific have 
