Guess who? On the importance of using appropriate name: case study of Marphysa sanguinea (Montagu, 1803)

By

Lavesque, Nicolas, 1979-
Daffe, Guillemine
Grall, Jacques
Zanol, Joana
Gouillieux, Benoit
Hutchings, P. A. (Patricia Ann), 1946-

Type

Article

Date of Publication

2019

Original Publication

ZooKeys

Volume

859

Pages

1-15

Subjects

Bait worms , cosmopolitan species , misidentification , molecular , taxonomy

Contributed by

Pensoft Publishers

Language

English

Published by

Sofia, Bulgaria Pensoft Publishers

Identifiers

DOI: https://doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.859.34117

 

Abstract

The common bait wormMarphysasanguinea(Montagu, 1813), originally described from the south coast of England, is the type species of the genus. This species has been widely reported from all around the world and has been considered as cosmopolitan until recently. This is partly because the original description was very brief and poorly illustrated, and also because all species superficially look similar. In order to clarify the situation,M.sanguineawas redescribed and a neotype was designated by Hutchings and Karageorgpoulos in 2003. Recently, specimens from Cornwall, close to the type locality, were sampled, examined morphologically, and used to obtain COI gene sequences for this species. Molecular results permitted us to confirm the identity and presence ofM.sanguineaalong the French coasts and to highlight the presence of inaccurate sequences of this species on GenBank. Use of this “false” cosmopolitan species at a worldwide scale by many biologists is also discussed in this paper.