Laonice Malmgren, 1867
Laonice sp. 3
Voucher. Endeavour: Station E10FB
Diagnosis. Voucher is the only specimen collected in this study; incomplete, short anterior fragment of 26 chaetigers, 6 mm long and 1 mm wide. Anterior part of body enlarged and flattened; colour in alcohol off white to yellow.
Prostomium narrow, anteriorly rounded; indistinctly fused with peristomium by a thin membrane (peristomial lateral wings not rising above prostomium); eyes present as 4 rudimentary, red blotches; occipital antenna missing (absent?) caruncle posteriorly indistinct.
Branchiae from chaetiger 2, missing in most segments, where present superseding the length of corresponding notopodial postchaetal lamella to which basally fused; exact number of branchiae not defined, since all the specimens are incomplete.
Chaetiger 1 with triangular, short notopodial postchaetal lamellae and rounded neuropodial lamellae; notopodial postchaetal lamellae increasingly larger, triangular with short blunt tip, observed until the end of fragment, where they decrease in size. Dorsal crests not observed. Neuropodial pouches present from chaetiger 15, well developed.
Notopodial and neuropodial chaetae smooth, narrowly limbate capillaries; always arranged in 2 rows in both noto- and neuropodia. Sabre chaetae, granulated throughout most of its length present from chaetiger 18, up to 3 per fascicle. Neuropodial hooded hooks not observed in 26 chaetiger long fragment. Pygidium missing, not observed.
Remarks. The diagnosis above is based on an incomplete single specimen, therefore full set of characters as well as inter-specific variation cannot be reported. Summary of the characters distinguishing different Laonice species from Falkland Island and wider region can be found in the page Laonice species comparison table. For information on diagnostic characters from other geographic regions and assessment of taxonomic characters see Sikorski (2011).
