SPIRORBID POLYCHAETES AS BOREAL GUESTS IN THE MEDITERRANEAN PLEISTOCENE

A first report of Spirorbis spirorbis (Linnaeus, 1758) and Spirorbis corallinae (de Silva & Knight-Jones, 1962) from Early and Middle Pleistocene deposits in Sicily and submerged Late Glacial sediments in the Western Mediterranean is presented. Today both species live on shores and very shallow...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: SANFILIPPO, ROSSANA
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: Milano University Press 1998
Subjects:
Online Access:https://riviste.unimi.it/index.php/RIPS/article/view/5335
https://doi.org/10.13130/2039-4942/5335
Description
Summary:A first report of Spirorbis spirorbis (Linnaeus, 1758) and Spirorbis corallinae (de Silva & Knight-Jones, 1962) from Early and Middle Pleistocene deposits in Sicily and submerged Late Glacial sediments in the Western Mediterranean is presented. Today both species live on shores and very shallow bottoms in the North Atlantic and are unknown from the Recent Mediterranean. Such differences in their present and past biogeographic distributions suggest that these species were Boreal Guests (BGs) in the Mediterranean Pleistocene. Special attention is paid to tube morphology and structure, which bear some diagnostic features for species identification.