Piromis Kinberg, 1867 emended

Piromis Kinberg 1867:338, Grube 1877a:65, 68, Day 1967:663, Fauchald 1977:117.

Balanochaeta Chamberlin, 1919:397 (Type species: Trophonia eruca Claparède, 1868, by original designation). Type species: Piromis arenosus Kinberg, 1867, by monotypy.

Diagnosis. Body cylindrical. Tunic thick, usually with adherent sediment grains. Cephalic cage well developed. Anterior margin of chaetiger 1 papillated, middorsal trifid lobe present or absent. First few chaetigers with long parapodial papillae, or papillae formed into dorsal longitudinal rows; these individual papillae sometimes hypertrophied into dorsal tubercles. Neuropodia with multiarticulate bidentate neurochaetae in median and posterior chaetigers. Branchiae cirriform, arising from tongue-like plate.

Remarks. Fauchald (1977:117) stated that Piromis contains 10 species, provided with a tongue-shaped branchial plate that might be entire or bifid, and having unidentate or bidentate neurohooks. However, Day (1973:108) had previously redefined Piromis to retain only those species provided with bidentate neurohooks, and regarded those species with entire neurohooks as members of Pherusa . Since Piromis arenosus Kinberg, 1867, the type species for the genus, has bidentate, multiarticulated neurohooks (Hartman 1949:117, P. 15, Fig. 7), and a tongue-like branchial plate (Day, 1967:664, Fig. 32.4c), these should be the defining characters for the genus.

As herein defined, besides the type species, Piromis arenosus Kinberg, 1867, Piromis includes P. amoureuxi n. sp., P. brisegnoi n. sp., P. capulata (Moore, 1909) n. comb., P. e r u c a (Claparède, 1868), P. kisemboanus (Augener, 1918) n. comb., P. robertsi (Hartman, 1951), P. suni n. sp., P. vossae n. sp., P. w e b s t e r i Day, 1973 n. comb., n. status, and P. w e h e i n. sp.