Trigonostomum penicillatum
Creators: name: Willems, Wim R.
name: Artois, Tom J.
name: Vermin, Wouter A.
name: Schockaert, Ernest R.
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2004
Subjects: Biodiversity
Taxonomy
Animalia
Platyhelminthes
Rhabditophora
Rhabdocoela
Trigonostomidae
Trigonostomum
Trigonostomum penicillatum

description: TRIGONOSTOMUM PENICILLATUM (SCHMIDT, 1857)
MICOLETZKY, 1910
(FIG. 7C)
Alternative species name: trigonostomumpenicillatum
Vortex penicillatus Schmidt, 1857: 352, t. 1, fig. 3.
Hyporhynchus penicillatus Diesing, 1862: 227; Graff, 1882: 341, t. 9, figs 15–20; Gamble, 1893: 467; Fuhrmann, 1898: 459; Gamble, 1900: 813; Meixner, 1925: 256; 1926: 577.
Trigonostomum intermedium n.n. Graff 1910: 4.
Trigonostomum penicillatum Micoletzky, 1910: 174; Graff, 1913: 308–309, figs 268–270; Southern, 1912: 3, 9; 1915: 34; Meixner, 1924a: 202–203; 1924b: 89, 92, 94, 96, 98, 99, 105; Southern, 1936: 45, 58; Westblad, 1954: 8; Den Hartog, 1964: 378; Ax, 1971: 216– 217, fig. 45.
Trigonostomum marki Graff, 1911b: 60, t.4, figs 44, 45; 1913: 309–310, fig. 271; Meixner, 1924b: 96, 99.
Known distribution: North American Atlantic coast (Graff, 1911b), French Atlantic coast (Ax, 1971), English Channel (Gamble, 1893), North Sea (Graff, 1913; Meixner, 1924b), Ireland (Southern, 1912, 1936), Norway (Westblad, 1954), Mediterranean Sea (Schmidt, 1857; Graff, 1913; Meixner, 1925, 1926) and Adriatic Sea (Meixner, 1925, 1926).
New localities: Great Britain, Plymouth, 5 July 1949, Westblad (coll. SMNH). France, Corsica, Ocellutia, large sandflat with coarse sand, 10–12 m deep, 19 October 1982 and 18 September 1983. Italy, Sardinia, Porticciolo, on algae at ± 10 m deep, 14 August 1994 (type locality). France, Banyuls, Ile Gros, on green algae near the jetty behind the station, 20, 22 and 23 June 2000. Yugoslavia, Adriatic Sea, Dubrovnik, 24 June 1952, Westblad (coll. SMNH). Bulgaria, Varna (Black Sea), on algae, 21 December 1953, Valkanov (coll. SMNH).
Material examined: Observations on live material from Corsica, Sardinia and Banyuls. Neotype (LUC no. 229) from Sardinia. One whole mount from Bulgaria (SMNH, no. 47485) and serially sectioned specimens from Great Britain (SMNH, nos. 47480–3) and Yugoslavia (SMNH, nos. 47484). Seven whole mounts from Banyuls and three from Corsica.
Diagnosis: Trigonostomum species with copulatory organ 30–45 Mm long. Stylet 44–53 Mm long, proximally bent over 90∞. Mantle with three spiny plates, surrounds only the distal part of the stylet. Bursal appendage 60–70 Mm long, with a barrel-like casing and ± 12 distal tubules.
Remarks: According to Meixner (1924b), the bursal appendage of T. penicillatum partially consists of ± 26 fine rods. However, our observations on serially sectioned material of T. penicillatum (SMNH) revealed only 12 fine, slightly bent rods in the bursal appendage of a specimen from Plymouth, though more in the individuals in the whole mounts.
In 1897, T. intermedium was described by Attems, but the same name was used by Graff as a nomen nudum in 1910 for a species he later (Graff, 1911b) described as T. marki. The structure of the bursal appendage of T. marki is identical to that of T. penicillatum (Graff, 1911b, 1913). According to Graff (1913) the species differ in the structure of the copulatory organ. In T. penicillatum the organ has a stylet, enclosed by a mantle, which carries three plates; the same structure is described and drawn by Graff (1911b: 61, table 4, figs 44, 45; 1913: 309, fig. 271) for T. marki. T. marki is therefore synonymized with T. penicillatum.
description: Published as part of Willems, Wim R., Artois, Tom J., Vermin, Wouter A. & Schockaert, Ernest R., 2004, Revision of Trigonostomum Schmidt, 1852 (Platyhelminthes, Typhloplanoida, Trigonostomidae) with the description of seven new species, pp. 271-296 in Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society 141 (2) on page 290, DOI: 10.1111/j.1096-3642.2004.00124.x, http://zenodo.org/record/4634553