Sphaerosyllis goorabantennata

Sphaerosyllis goorabantennata
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Annelida
Class:	Polychaeta
Subclass:	Errantia
Order:	Phyllodocida
Suborder:	Nereidiformia
Family:	Syllidae
Subfamily:	Exogoninae
Genus:	Sphaerosyllis
Species:	S. goorabantennata
Binomial name
	Sphaerosyllis goorabantennata; San Martín, 2005

Last updated February 23, 2019

Sphaerosyllis goorabantennata is a species belonging to the phylum Annelida, a group known as the segmented worms.^[1]Sphaerosyllis goorabantennata is distinct by its small size, small and unevenly distributed papillae, as well as by its particularly long antennae and tentacular cirri. Sphaerosyllis minima and S. minima magnapapillata are also small, but their antennae and tentacular cirri are significantly shorter, like its cogenerate species.^[1] The species' name is derived from the Aboriginal word gooraba, meaning "big", alluding to its long antennae.

Aboriginal Australian is a collective term for all the indigenous peoples from the Australian mainland and Tasmania. This group contains many separate cultures that have developed in the various environments of Australia for more than 50,000 years. These peoples have a broadly shared, though complex, genetic history, but it is only in the last two hundred years that they have been defined and started to self identify as a single group. The exact definition of the term Aboriginal Australian has changed over time and place, with the importance of family lineage, self identification and community acceptance all being of varying importance. In the past Aboriginal Australians also lived over large sections of the continental shelf and were isolated on many of the smaller offshore islands, once the land was inundated at the start of the inter-glacial. However, they are distinct from the Torres Strait Islander people, despite extensive cultural exchange.

Description

The species' body is small, with a total length of 2.5 millimetres (0.098 in) and width of 0.11 millimetres (0.0043 in), including 26 chaetigers. It possesses few small papillae, somewhat longer on chaetiger 2. Its prostomium is rectangular and wide, showing 4 small eyes in a trapezoidal arrangement. Its antennae are long, longer than the combined length of its prostomium and palps; they have bulbous bases and slender filiform tips. The palps are blunt, longer than its prostomium, fused along their length, possessing a dorsal furrow and few papillae.^[1]

The prostomium is the first body segment in an annelid worm's body in the anterior end. It is in front of the mouth, being usually a small shelf- or lip-like extension over the dorsal side of the mouth.

Antennae, sometimes referred to as "feelers", are paired appendages used for sensing in arthropods.

Its peristomium measures the same as its succeeding segments. Its tentacular cirri are long, however shorter than the antennae; the dorsal cirri are similar to its cogenerates', with bulbous bases and thin tips, being shorter than the tentacular cirri, with slender tips. Its anterior parapodia have 5-6 compound chaetae each, with unidentate blades provided with short spines exhibiting dorsoventral gradation. Posterior parapodia, on the other hand, possess 4 compound chaetae each, with unidentate blades provided with short spines as well.^[1]

The peristomium is the first true body segment in an annelid worm's body in the anterior end. It is directly behind the prostomium and contains the mouth, tentacular cirri, and sometimes feeding palps, which may instead occur on the prostomium. If an eversible pharynx is present, it is contained in this segment as well, and can fill up to 20 segments when inverted, depending on the species.

In zoology, a tentacle is a flexible, mobile, elongated organ present in some species of animals, most of them invertebrates. In animal anatomy, tentacles usually occur in one or more pairs. Anatomically, the tentacles of animals work mainly like muscular hydrostats. Most forms of tentacles are used for grasping and feeding. Many are sensory organs, variously receptive to touch, vision, or to the smell or taste of particular foods or threats. Examples of such tentacles are the "eye stalks" of various kinds of snails. Some kinds of tentacles have both sensory and manipulatory functions.

In biology, a cirrusSIRR-əs, plural cirri, SIRR-eye, is a long, thin structure in an animal similar to a tentacle but generally lacking the tentacle's strength, flexibility, thickness, and sensitivity.

The dorsal simple chaetae from the proventricular segments are unidentate and show marginal spines. Its ventral simple chaetae on the posterior parapodia are sigmoid, smooth and unidentate. Its acicula is bent to a right angle. Sphaerosyllis goorabantennata does not show parapodial glands.^[1]

The proventriculus is part of the digestive system of birds. An analogous organ exists in invertebrates and insects.

Acicula are the chitinous support rods within parapodia found in the class Polychaeta.

The pharynx spans approximately 3 segments and is relatively slender. Its proventricle spans through 1 or 2 segments, with 15 muscle cell rows. Its pygidium is small, with a few small papillae and 2 anal cirri, which are similar to its dorsal cirri but longer.^[1]

The pygidium is the posterior body part or shield of crustaceans and some other arthropods, such as insects and the extinct trilobites. It contains the anus and, in females, the ovipositor. It is composed of fused body segments, sometimes with a tail, and separated from thoracic segments by an articulation.

Distribution

S. goorabantennata was found in Western Australia, at a depth of between 6 and 24 metres (20 and 79 ft) in dead corals. Its distribution is thought to include the whole of WA.^[1]

Western Australia is a state occupying the entire western third of Australia. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, and the Southern Ocean to the south, the Northern Territory to the north-east and South Australia to the south-east. Western Australia is Australia's largest state, with a total land area of 2,529,875 square kilometres, and the second-largest country subdivision in the world, surpassed only by Russia's Sakha Republic. The state has about 2.6 million inhabitants – around 11 percent of the national total – of whom the vast majority live in the south-west corner, 79 per cent of the population living in the Perth area, leaving the remainder of the state sparsely populated.

Corals are marine invertebrates within the class Anthozoa of the phylum Cnidaria. They typically live in compact colonies of many identical individual polyps. Corals species include the important reef builders that inhabit tropical oceans and secrete calcium carbonate to form a hard skeleton.

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<i>Sphaerosyllis levantina</i> species of annelid

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References

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 San Martín, G. (2005). Exogoninae (Polychaeta: Syllidae) from Australia with the description of a new genus and twenty-two new species. Records of the Australian Museum. 57(1): 39-152., available online at https://dx.doi.org/10.3853/j.0067-1975.57.2005.1438, page(s): 55-57, figs. 11A-G, 12A-E.

External links

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[Authority-1] 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 San Martín, G. (2005). Exogoninae (Polychaeta: Syllidae) from Australia with the description of a new genus and twenty-two new species. Records of the Australian Museum. 57(1): 39-152., available online at https://dx.doi.org/10.3853/j.0067-1975.57.2005.1438, page(s): 55-57, figs. 11A-G, 12A-E.