A CHRONOLOGICAL REVIEW OF POLYCHAETE TAXONOMY IN NEW-ZEALAND

All Polychaeta (Annelida) described from New Zealand in the 19th and e arly 20th Century are reviewed in an historical sequence from the firs t species described - the serpulid Vermetus cariniferus Gray, 1843, wh ich was inadvertently classified as a vermetid mollusc - to Dawbinia a ucklandica, a species of problematical identity described by W.B. Benh am in his last paper. We organise the scattered information on purport ed New Zealand endemic polychaetes and their type localities, update i nformation on the type repositories, and tabulate all taxonomic refere nces to extralimital species up to 1950. In comparison, taxa named sin ce 1950 are less enigmatic and we briefly summarise taxonomic effort d uring this period. We also tabulate New Zealand taxa described in the last two decades since the most recent catalogue. Based on this taxono mic review we conservatively estimate the diversity of New Zealand's p olychaete fauna as 53 families, 243 genera/subgenera and 471 species/s ubspecies; however, we recognise that the number of genera and, in par ticular, species will increase greatly following taxonomic revisions p resently underway, or planned.