Family PYURIDAE

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Family PYURIDAE

Compiler and date details

P. Kott, Queensland Museum, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia

Introduction

The family Pyuridae Hartmeyer, 1908 contains robust species with tough fibrous tests, branched branchial tentacles, more than four branchial folds on each side of the body and usually a single gonad on each side (although often it is lobed or partially divided along its length). Glandular folds, lobes and sometimes branched diverticula from the pyloric region of the gut wall are particularly elaborate. The body muscles are strong, the bands radiating out from each of the siphons and crossing one another over the sides of the body. These muscle bands usually form an almost continuous coat.

Siphonal and test armature such as spines, bristles and scale-like thickenings often occur in the surface test, as well as hair and root-like extensions of the test that adhere to sand and other foreign particles creating a coating around the outside of the test, and/or forming a firm attachment in sediments or on hard substrates. In some species, the hard test forms a long, narrow stalk from the anterior end of the body which holds it above the substrate and enables it to move with surge or currents, always presenting the incurrent aperture to the on-coming current to enhance the ciliary feeding capacity (Kott 1989). At the same time, the excurrent aperture is pointed in the opposite direction, expelling the waste products and gametes into the passing stream of water. Many species (e.g. those of Pyura and Herdmania) have calcareous spicules embedded in the test.

Pyuridae are represented in Australian waters by the diverse shallow water genera, namely, Pyura Molina, 1782 (26 species, with dorsal languets and an arborescent liver) and Microcosmus Heller, 1877 (11 species, with dorsal lamina). In addition, five of the less diverse genera are each represented by one or two species: Hartmeyeria Ritter, 1913 (one species), Halocynthia Verrill & Rathbun, 1879 (two species), Herdmania Lahille, 1888 (two species), and Claudenus (nom. nov. for Ctenicella Kott, 1972; one species) and Ctenyura Van Name, 1918 (two species). Boltenia Savigny, 1816 is the only well known genus from continental shelf locations recorded from Indonesia as well as the Northern Hemisphere that has not been reported from Australia.{0244}