Golfingia cf. muricaudata ( Southern, 1913 )

Golfingia cf. muricaudata ( Southern, 1913) View in CoL

Fig. 6A View Fig

Type locality of nominal species

Ireland ( Southern 1913: 21, pl. 4 fig. 5).

Material examined

MEXICO • 1 spec.; W coast of Baja California; 28°47ʹ15ʺ N, 115°42ʹ57ʺ W; 1 Aug. 2013; depth 1045 m; core; TALUD XVI cruise, on board R/V El Puma; EMU-13446 GoogleMaps .

Description (EMU-13446)

Trunk 50 mm in length; rough, light brown body wall; scattered thin, cylindrical papillae. Caudal appendage 10% of trunk length, covered with cylindrical papillae. Introvert incomplete, shorter than trunk.

Longitudinal musculature continuous. Four retractor muscles ( RM), dorsal RM attached to body wall anteriorly to ventral pair and more separated from ventral nerve cord. Esophagus attached to ventral RM. Two sack-shaped nephridia; nephridiopores open anteriorly anus; without spindle muscle; rectum with six thin lateral muscles; ventral nerve cord ends before internal anterior margin of caudal appendage.

Habitat

Bathyal ( 1045 m); muddy sand bottom.

Distribution

Western coast of Baja California.

Remarks

Despite the damage to the single specimen examined, it was placed in the subgenus Golfingia ( Golfingia) because the dorsal retractor muscles are displaced. Within the subgenus only two species have a caudal appendage. One is G. ( G.) anderssoni (Théel, 1911) , described from Antarctica; it has large, bladder-shaped papillae that cover an area of 65–90% of the posterior trunk length ( Cutler 1994), while the specimen examined here from Baja California has inconspicuous conical papillae. The other species is G. ( G.) muricaudata , which also has inconspicuous conical papillae. Unfortunately, since the specimen is damaged, the identity of this species cannot be confirmed; more specimens are needed to clarify its status.

The nominal species, Golfingia ( Golfingia) muricaudata ( Southern, 1913), was described from Ireland from depths of 475–1088 m ( Southern 1913); it has also been recorded from Japan ( Murina 1964) and the North Pacific ( Maiorova & Adrianov 2015, 2018).