Standardising English and Afrikaans common names for polychaetes harvested as bait in South Africa

Abstract

Supplementary material Table 5: Identification of polychaetes used as bait in the peer-reviewed literature, field guides, unpublished reports and theses, and governmentissued documents. Where possible, region where information was gather is included.

Live to Die Another Day: Regeneration in Diopatra aciculata Knox and Cameron, 1971 (Annelida: Onuphidae) Collected as Bait in Knysna Estuary, South Africa

“…In South Africa, the three most widely reported polychaete genera used as bait are Arenicola , Pseudonereis, and Gunnarea with isolated reports of onuphids used as bait ([ 22 , 23 ] Supplementary Material Tables S1–S3). One of these is of Diopatra cuprea, used in KwaZulu Natal on the east coast [ 24 ], although the collection of polychaetes has subsequently been prohibited in that province [ 23 ]. Diopatra neapolitana was reported in low densities in Swartkops [ 25 ] and Knysna in the 1950s [ 26 ], and in Keurbooms in the 1980s [ 27 ].…”

“…It was only in 2018 that Van Rensburg et al (2020) correctly identified the species as Diopatra aciculata and categorised the species as cryptogenic, as the records in South Africa [ 20 ] may predate the description in Australia [ 18 ]. Now known as the estuarine moonshine worm [ 23 ], D. aciculata is only reported in Knysna, Keurbooms, and Swartkops Estuaries [ 21 ] and is the second most popular polychaete bait species in the Knysna Estuary after Arenicola loveni [ 31 ]. Since the 2000s, the population of D. aciculata in Knysna has increased in size with recent population estimates indicating approximately 20 to 24 million individuals [ 21 ].…”