This was the first discovery of the Pogonophora, an animal phylum restricted to the deep sea and remarkably common in certain habitats there.
These worms are sometimes placed in their own phylum, the Vestimentifera, but they are similar to pogonophorans in most respects, and the current tendency is to group these rift-dwelling worms together with the rest of the Pogonophora into one phylum.
The name Pogonophora is Greek for "beard-bearers," and comes from the fact that many species have from one to many tentacles at the anterior end.
The Pogonophora, or beard worms, are a small group of deep sea tube worms[?] often found growing around warm springs.
The rear of the body is segmented, and together with the Vestimentifera they have recently been regarded as a family of annelids, called the Siboglinidae[?], though they were earlier treated as a phylum.
The first species was dredged from the waters of what is now Indonesia in 1900.
Phylogeny of the Annelida and allies(Site not responding. Last check: )
These suggest that (1) Sipuncula and Echiura are not sister groups; (2) Nemertea are protostomes; (3) Vestimentifera and Pogonophora are protostomes that have a common ancestor with Echiura and (4) Vestimentifera and Pogonophora are a monophyletic clade.
The Pogonophora is reduced to the rank of family within the Polychaeta and reverts to the name Siboglinidae Caullery, 1914.
Boore, J. L.;Brown, W. Mitochondrial genomes of Galathealinum, Helobdella, and Platynereis: Sequence and gene arrangement comparisons indicate that Pogonophora is not a phylum and Annelida and Arthropoda are not sister taxa.
Several phyla within the Lophotrochozoa have trochophore larvae (Nemertea, Mollusca, Sipuncula, Echiura, Pogonophora, Annelida), and several have a lophophore, a ring of tentacles encircling the mouth (Bryozoa, Entoprocta, Phoronida, Brachiopoda).
Pogonophora – The Pogonophora are deeps sea dwelling tube-worms that can reach 2 meters in length.
Remember that the Pogonophora are sometimes called the Vestimentifera and sometimes considered a class within the Annelida.
Pogonophora of the northwest Atlantic: Nova Scotia to Florida (Smithsonian contributions to zoology, no. 88) by Eve C Southward (Unknown Binding - 1971)
Pogonophora by Ivanov by A. Ivanov and D B Carlisle (Hardcover - 1963)
New Pogonophora from Indonesia (Records of the Australian Museum) by Eve C Southward (Unknown Binding - 1975)
