Sabellidae and Fabriciidae from the north Adriatic Sea with the description of Amphicorina rovignensis n.sp. and Megalomma pseudogesae n.sp

The research of the polychaete fauna in the northern Adriatic Sea started early in the 19th century and was continued until today. However, recent studies were mostly dealing with ecological aspects or simply reporting species lists, while taxonomic ones were very scarce. Sabellidae is the second most diverse polychaete family in the Adriatic, after Syllidae, including some species described and recorded only in the northern Adriatic. Here we report the updated list of the Sabellidae and Fabriciidae families in the northern Adriatic Sea deriving from literature data as well as the presently conducted researches. Polychaetes were sampled from three offshore soft-bottom stations with Van-Veen grab and from three coastal rocky shore stations by scrapping the hard bottom benthos within a 10x10 cm metal frame. Among the analysed material three Sabellidae species are new for the Adriatic fauna, while five Sabellidae and one Fabriciidae species were recorded for the first time in its northern part. Two new sabellid species, Amphicorina rovignensis n.sp. and Megalomma pseudogesae n.sp., were found and described. These findings increase the number of the Sabellidae species recorded from the area from 28 to 38. Our results indicate the widening of the species areal as well as the lack of the recent taxonomic studies in the area. Taking into consideration that studies on only six stations raised the number of known sabellid species from the area by 30%, these results support the need for the regular taxonomic updating of the polychaete fauna in the northern Adriatic.