First record of Phoronopsis (Phoronida) from Japan, with a description of Phoronopsis californica Hilton, 1930 from Okinawa

Phylum Phoronida currently contains two genera, Phoronis Wright, 1856 and Phoronopsis Gilchrist, 1907, with approximately thirteen speices. Phoronida is distributed worldwide, ranging from northern Europe to southern New Zealand and also from intertidal to 400 m depths. From Japanese waters, four species of Phoronis have been reported, viz. Phoronis ijimai Oka, 1897, Phoronis australis Haswell, 1883, Phoronis psammophila Cori, 1889 and Phoronis emigi Hirose et al., 2014. We describe the morphology of Phoronopsis californica Hilton, 1930, based on five specimens collected at a sandy-mud habitat in Nago Bay and Oura Bay, Okinawa, Japan. We examined the internal anatomy by serial paraffin sections. We also examined the genetic distance of Japanese specimens from the other phoronid sequences in GenBank. This is the first record of Phoronopsis from Japanese waters and the fifth species record of phoronids in addition to the previously recorded four species of Phoronis .