Taxonomic Reappraisal of Auct. (Nemertea: Pilidiophora) from Japan for the First Time in 122 Years.

Having been reported in 1898 for the first time from Japanese waters, the lineid heteronemertean auct. is known to inhabit tidal flats under the influence of the warm Kuroshio Current along the coasts of Honshu and southwestward, characteristically with a uniformly raisin-colored to black body lacking a caudal cirrus. The taxonomic identity of the Japanese auct. has been questioned by specialists because of some obvious morphological differences between (Hubrecht, 1887) s.str. (now in Chernyshev, 1995), originally described from the subantarctic region. In the present study, we describe the Japanese auct. as sp. nov. Before the present study, the genus Corrêa, 1963 had been monotypic with the type species Corrêa, 1963 from the Caribbean. We infer the phylogenetic position of within Lineidae based on the mitochondrial 16S rRNA and cytochrome oxidase subunit I, and the nuclear 18S rRNA, 28S rRNA, and histone H3 genes.