Golfingia elongata (Keferstein, 1862)

A tropical and boreal species rare in the Arctic, dwelling hard ground gravel, sand, shelf rock, less often silt and clay and mud

Golfingia elongata hooks

Golfingia elongata hook details

Synonymy
Phascolosoma elongatum Keferstein, 1862

Distinguishing characteristics
Four retractors.
Smooth, slender, lustrous worm.
8-20 rings of slender hooks.
Short introvert that carries 20-36 tentacles in a single disk.

Size
Common trunk length: 1-15 mm

Color
Whitish, often with tints of pink or gray

Habitat
It prefers the upper sublittoral. Often inhabits hard ground gravel, sand, shelf rock, less often silt and clay and mud.

Feeding
Deposit feeder

Life cycle
Trochophore larva

Distribution
North Atlantic and Mediterranean, Pacific (East and South China Seas), rare in Indian Ocean; from intertidal depths to 720 m.

References

• Cutler EB (1973) Sipuncula of the western north Atlantic. Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History 152:103-204
• Cutler EB (1994) The Sipuncula. Their Systematics, Biology, and Evolution. 1-453
• Cutler EB, Cutler NJ (1987) Revision of the genus Golfingia (Sipuncula: Golfingiidae). Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington 100:735-761
• Cutler EB, Murina VV (1977) On the sipunculan genus Golfingia Lankester, 1885. Zoological Journal of the Linnaean Society 60:173-187
• Fischer W (1922) Gephyreen des Reichsmuseums zu Stockholm. Archiv für Zoologi 14:1-39
• Gibbs PE (1973) On the genus Golfingia (Sipuncula) in the Plymouth area with a description of a new species. Journal of the Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom 53:73-86
• Gibbs PE (1976) Notes on the reproductive cycles of several Golfingia species (Sipuncula). Journal of the Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom 56:909-915
• Gibbs PE (2001) Sipunculans. Key and Notes for the Identification of British Species, Synopses of the British Fauna (New Series).
• Gibbs PE, Cutler EB (1987) A classification of phylum Sipuncula. Bulletin of the British Museum Natural History Zoology 52:43-58
• Kędra M, Murina GV (2007) The sipunculan fauna of Svalbard. Polar Research 26:37-47
• Kędra M, Włodarska-Kowalczuk M (2008) Distribution and diversity of sipunculan fauna in high Arctic fjords (west Spitsbergen). Polar Biology 31:1181-1190
• Pancucci-Papadopoulou MA, Murina GV, Zenetos A (1999) The phylum Sipuncula in the Mediteranean Sea. 1-109
• Saiz-Salinas JI, Villafranca Urchegui L (1990) Sipuncula from the Alborean Sea and Ibero-Morrocan Bay. Journal of Natural History 24:1143-1177
• Théel H (1875) Etudes sur des Gephyreens inermes des ers de la Scandinavie, du Spitsberg et du Groenland. Kungliga Svenska Vetenskaps-Akademies Handlingar 3:1-30
• Théel H (1905) Northern and arctic invertebrates in the collection of the Swedish State Museum. I. Sipunculids. Kungliga Svenska Vetenskaps-Akademies Handlingar 3:1-30
• Théel H (1911) Priapulids and Sipunculids dredged by the Swedish Antarctic Expedition 1901-1903 and phenomenon of bipolarity. Kungliga Svenska Vetenskaps-Akademies Handlingar 47:3-36
• Wesenberg-Lund E (1933) The collections of Gephyreans in the Royal Museum of Natural History of Belgium. Bulletin du Institute Royal des Sciences Naturelles de Belgique 9:1-15
• Wesenberg-Lund E (1939) Gephyreans from Swedish waters in the Museum of Natural History of Gothenburg. Gouml;teborgs Kungliga Vetenskaps Vittenhets-Samhälles Handlingar 6:1-35