Iphione ovata Kinberg 1856

Iphione ovata Kinberg, 1856 Figs 2, 36 Iphione ovata Kinberg, 1856: 383; Kinberg 1858: 8, Pl. 3, Fig. 8; Pl. 10, Fig. 45; Baird 1865: 181; de Quatrefages 1866: 269–270; Chamberlin 1919: 64; Pettibone 1986: 16–19, Fig. 6 (partim, holotype); Piotrowski et al. 2024: 4–19, Figs 1–9 (redescr., syn.). Diagnosis. Iphione with median antenna reduced to nuchal papilla; elytra with smooth margins; macrotubercles spine-like, in 2–5 rows, slightly larger in first than subsequent rows; cirrigerous segments with dorsal cirrophores with basal tubercle projected; neurochaetae unidentate. Remarks. Iphione ovata Kinberg, 1856 has been recently redescribed (Piotrowski et al. 2024). I. ovata resembles I. hirotai Izuka, 1913 from Japan. No specimens of the latter species were studied, but its original description indicates that it differs from I. ovata in that its nuchal lappet is wide, round, macrotubercles, 2–5 times longer than wide, arranged in 3–5 rows, whereas in I. hirotai the nuchal lappet is thin, round, and macrotubercles up to twice longer than wide. Distribution. Red Sea to South Africa and across entire Indo-West Pacific to the Eastern Pacific, on reefs and in shallow rocky or mixed bottoms.