A new species of Chaetozone (Polychaeta: Cirratulidae) from deep water in the northeast Atlantic, with comments on the diversity of the genus in cold northern waters

Originally described from Spitzbergen, Greenland, Iceland and Scandinavia, Chaetozone setosa is now widely recognised to be a species complex by workers involved in analysing survey material in the northeast Atlantic. Chaetozone species were examined from wide-scale surveys of the Faroe-Shetland Channel and nearby areas, which included water depths ranging from 100 to 2000 m and diverse hydrographic conditions. Comparisons were made with other deep-water material from around Iceland. There appear to be at least five Chaetozone species occurring in the cold, deeper waters of the area. One of the commonest of these, from the lower West Shetland Continental Slope ( Faroe-Shetland Channel) and the Iceland-Faroe Rise, is described as a new species.