[None. Starts:]
Working through the material of the recent "Murray" Expedition I encountered a number of specimens of
Platynereis pulcheIla Gravier (1900, pl. xii. figs. 55-56, and 1901, p. 202, text-figs. 210-213). They were from several stations in the Guff of Aden and the Arabian Sea between 10°N., 45°E., and 17°N., 56°E. As Fauvel (1911, p. 402) has pointed out,
P. pulchella is (in its atocous form) very close to
P. dumerilii Audouin and Milne-Edwards – so much so, that Fauvel described it as at the most a simple variety of that species. Its chief distinction is the presence in all but a few anterior chaetigers of between one and four dorsal homogomph falcigers (fig. 1) with downwardly curved tips and conspicuous terminal ligaments having their basal attachment as far down as the lip of the articular cup. These bristles are different from the dorsal homogomph falcigers to be found in the hinder region of
P. dumerilii. With these specimens there were two sexually modified forms – one a fully modified male and the other a partly modified individual transitional between the heteronereid and the atocous specimens. A careful comparison of the three forms has convinced me that they are conspecific.
