Anchinothria cf. pycnobranchaiata (McIntosh, 1885)
Voucher specimen. VINSON WEST: station 1MFB.
Diagnosis. Small worm, 5 mm fragment with 21 chaetigers. Chaetiger 1 enlarged and facing forwards. Five pairs of antennae with the median one longest, ceratostyles with three obvious rings and then an elongated plain area before the junction with the ceratophore in the three median antennae. Peristomial cirri present situated laterally as long as or slightly longer than perostomium-prostomium.
Branchiae present from chaetiger 9, formed as simple branch of the dorsal cirrus.
Chaetae formed of elongated curved hooks in chaetiger 1, very slightly bidentate with the send hook no more than a slight raised knob; in subsequent chaetigers pseudo-compound bidentate hooks present, with limbate and palmate chaetae, the latter flat to slightly curved and with 9 teeth along the free edge. Subacicular chaetae present from chaetiger 6, obviously bidentate, with short blunt hood.
Remarks. This species resembles the description and diagrams give by Orensanz (1990), but there are differences. The head is not small and narrow compared to following segments, the form of the parapodia of chaetiger 1 is less robust, the form of the hooks on chaetiger 1 are finer with less obvious bidentate endings and the start position of the subacicular hooks is on chaetiger 6 not chaetiger 4 as described by Orensanz (1990). The main difficulty in providing an authoritative identification is because of the great disparity in size between the type specimens of Anchinothria pycnobranchata and the FI specimens, which are much smaller. Some of the differences outlined may be related to size and require a range of specimen sizes for study before a definitive identification can be given.
