Nemertopsis bivittata (Delle Chiaje 1841)

Stylet-bearing nemertean from 15-22cm in length. Four eyespots, body color is brown-olive with mid-dorsal off-white/light stripe running the length of the body.

Fort Pierce Inlet to Miami (Florida, USA)

Mussel beds

Crustaceans and other worms

One specimen up to about 20 mm long; 1 mm wide; rounded at both ends. Yellow milky base color, dorsally with 2 brown to reddish longitudinal lines joined at anterior and posterior ends. Cerebral organ furrows precerebral, difficult to see. Head almost undifferentiated from body. Cephalic grooves not visible. Two pre-cerebral eyes on each lateral margin of head. Rhynchopore subterminal; proboscis small, slender provided with papillae; short central stylet (length: 11 µm), supported on a massive base (27 × 7 µm). Two pouches containing three accessory stylet each.

USA East Coast – Florida (Thollesson and Norenburg 2003), South Carolina (Caplins et al. 2012); Atlantic Galician Island (Junoy and Herrera-Bachiller 2010); European waters, Portuguese and Spanish Exclusive Economic Zone, Red Sea (Gibson 2014b); Santa Marta, Colombia.