PROC. BIOL. SOC. WASH. 105(4), 1992, pp. 693-708 NEW SPECIES AND RECORDS OF PHYLLODOCIDAE (POLYCHAETA) FROM THE CONTINENTAL SHELF AND SLOPE OFF CALIFORNIA James A. Blake Abstract. — Six new species of phyllodocid polychaetes are described from the continental shelf and slope off central California, mostly in vicinity of the Santa Maria Basin. New species include Eteone brigitteae, E. leptotes, E. pig-mentata, Lugia uschakovi, Protomystides mariaensis, and Sige pleijeli. A re-description of Sige brunnea (Fauchald, 1972) is presented based upon new collections from off San Francisco. In 1990, the U.S. Department of the In-terior, Minerals Management Service (MMS), initiated a project to prepare a tax-onomic atlas of the benthic fauna of the Santa Maria Basin and Western Santa Bar-bara Channel. These areas and other loca-tions on the California continental shelf have been the site of extensive biological recon-naissance and monitoring programs that were conducted to assess the environmental resources prior to the exploration and/or development of oil and gas reserves. One of the largest polychaete families being treated in the atlas is the Phyllodocidae, where 27 species distributed in 12 genera are de-scribed and illustrated (Blake 1992). Six of these species are new to science and their descriptions are presented here. In addition, a redescription of Sige brunnea (Fauchald, 1972) is presented so that one of the new species, Sige pleijeli can be clearly distin-guished. Positions and depths for the Santa Maria Basin stations are presented in Table 1 . The type specimens are lodged in the Na-tional Museum of Natural History (USNM), the Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History (LACM-AHF), and Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History (SBMNH). Systematic Account Genus Eteone Savigny, 1822 Diagnosis. — Prostomium with 4 anten-nae; nuchal papilla present or absent; 2 pairs of tentacular cirri on first segment; second segment lacking dorsal cirri. Proboscis smooth or rugose, lacking longitudinal rows of papillae. Anal cirri short, globular to dig-itiform with rounded tips, no more than 4 times longer than wide. Remarks.— Eteone was revised by Wil-son (1988) to include three genera: Eteone, Hypereteone Bergstrom, and Mysta Malm-gren. The genera were separated on the form of the anal cirri and the presence and lo-cation of papillae on the proboscis. Hyper-eteone was distinguished by having long ta-pering anal cirri that were three times as long as wide and three or more rows of pa-pillae or heavy ridges on the proboscis. Both Eteone and Mysta were said to have short anal cirri with rounded tips. Mysta was dis-tinguished from Eteone by having two lat-eral rows of papillae on the proboscis, whereas Eteone lacked such rows. While it is apparent that three distinct groups of spe-cies can be separated within the Eteone-complex of species, Pleijel (1991) did not recognize these taxa at the generic level. He was concerned that Eteone sensu stricto, might represent a paraphyletic assemblage defined on plesiomorphic characters. I also have doubts that three genera should be rec-ognized. Eteone brigitteae, newly described in the present study (see below), has asym-metrical dorsal cirri, and is most closely al-lied with species that are included with Hy-pereteone (Wilson 1988). However, the anal
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