118 | wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/zsc Zoologica Scripta. 2019;48:118–119. © 2018 Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences Received: 27 August 2018 | Accepted: 28 August 2018 DOI: 10.1111/zsc.12317 LETTER TO THE EDITOR Nemertean taxonomy—Implementing changes in the higher ranks, dismissing Anopla and Enopla Dear Editor, Nemertean classification has closely followed Stiasny‐ Wijnhoff’s scheme (1936) that was based on Schultze’s (1851) division of the taxon into the two classes Anopla and Enopla. In August 2018, the 9th International Conference of Nemertean Biology took place in the Wadden Sea Station of the Alfred Wegener Institute in List auf Sylt, Germany. At this meeting, the community reached consensus to revise ne- mertean taxonomy at the class level, based on the compiled evidence from studies on nemertean systematics published in the last 15 years (Andrade et al., 2014, 2012 ; Thollesson & Norenburg, 2003). Previous classifications (e.g., Stiasny‐ Wijnhoff, 1936) are not based on phylogenetic grounds, and the use of these names is therefore nowadays not wholly in- formative. With the purpose of facilitating the practical use of the nemertean taxonomy and also making nemertean tax- onomy reflect a wealth of more recent information, we con- clude that the ranks Anopla and Enopla should be eliminated with the following argumentation: “Enopla” has for long held no more information than the name “Hoplonemertea”. “Anopla” is paraphyletic and the name usually corresponds to the following traits: (a) not bearing stylet; and (b) mouth and proboscis having separate openings. This information is equally well presented in a system that also bears information on natural groups. The names “Anopla” and “Enopla” are hence dismissed and the following system of the Nemertea phylum is implemented: Class: Palaeonemertea Currently no Orders Class: Pilidiophora Order: Heteronemertea Class: Hoplonemertea Order: Monostilifera Order: Polystilifera The changes do not affect lower levels of taxonomy, but in accordance with Thollesson and Norenburg (2003), who first presented Pilidiophora, genus Hubrechtella is transferred from class Palaeonemertea to the class Pilidiophora. ORCID Malin Strand http://orcid.org/0000-0002-8144-9592 Malin Strand 1 Jon Norenburg 2 José E. Alfaya 3 Fernando Ángel Fernández‐Álvarez 4 Håkan S Andersson 5 Sonia C. S. Andrade 6 Thomas Bartolomaeus 7 Patrick Beckers 7 Gregorio Bigatti 3 Irina Cherneva 8 Alexey Chernyshev 9,10 Brian M. Chung 11 Jörn von Döhren 7 Gonzalo Giribet 12 Jaime Gonzalez‐Cueto 13 Alfonso Herrera‐Bachiller 14 Terra Hiebert 15 Natsumi Hookabe 16 Juan Junoy 14 Hiroshi Kajihara 16 Daria Krämer 7 Sebastian Kvist 17,18 Timur Yu Magarlamov 9 Svetlana Maslakova 15 Cecili B. Mendes 6 Robert Okazaki 11 Christina Sagorny 7 Megan Schwartz 19 Shi‐Chun Sun 20 Per Sundberg 21 James M. Turbeville 22 Cong‐Mei Xu 1,9 1 Swedish Species Information Centre, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Uppsala, Sweden 2 Department of Invertebrate Zoology, Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, Washington, District of Columbia 3 LARBIM‐IBIOMAR (CCT CONICET—CENPAT) & Facultad de Ciencias Naturales, Universidad Nacional de la Patagonia San Juan Bosco, Puerto Madryn, Argentina 4 Institut de Ciències del Mar (CSIC), Barcelona, Spain 5 Department of Chemistry & Biomedical Sciences, Linnaeus University, Kalmar, Sweden 6 Departamento de Genetica e Biologia Evolutiva, IB‐ Universidade de Sao Paulo, Sao Paulo, Brazil