Sipuncula are marine invertebrate worms, commonly known as peanut worms or star worms, comprising around 151 recognized species. They are widely distributed throughout the world's oceans from intertidal tropical to cold deep-water habitats. These little-known marine invertebrates are inconspicuous, and often confused with holothurians, echiurans or nemerteans and easily overlooked by inexperienced observers. However sipunculans have few, but peculiar characteristics that separate them easily from the other groups. As infaunal animals, burrowed in sediment or hidden within coral ruble or empty gastropod shells, they are not readily observed or collected. As with species of many other minor phyla, species descriptions of sipunculans in the older literature often consist of a short paragraph with poor, if any, illustration and many references are not easily accessible. Moreover, there are about five active researchers in the world with systematic expertise in this group. The lack of specialists and the difficulty of access to the specific references, make the identification of these worms a challenge. With this website we would like to make available scientific knowledge to an audience interested in this little-known marine invertebrate offering descriptions, images and links to relevant literature. ... [Information of the supplier]
Polychaeta of the Southern Ocean LifeDesk records the biodiversity and taxonomy of Antarctic and Subantarctic polychaetes (Annelida: Polychaeta). The Southern Ocean encircling Antarctica hosts a diverse polychaete fauna. The first benthic samples of polychaetes were taken on the voyage of H.M.S. Erebus & Terror, under the command of Captain Sir James Clark Ross. Ross reached the sea that bears his name in 1841. Many expeditions from many nations have visited Antarctic seas since, and over 700 named species have been recorded for Antarctica’s shelf, slope and deep-sea benthos, mainly from the Ross Sea and the Antarctic Peninsula / Weddell Sea areas. Given this effort over the years the circum Antarctic region has been sampled repeatedly in some places. However, new samples taken on board research vessels continue to yield new, unknown species, and there are large extents of ocean where little sampling has been done. The 551 accepted species names in the classification tree are from the Antarctic seas taxa list of WoRMS. ... [Information of the supplier]
