Southern, 1914
Description:
Body long and thin with numerous segments. Prostomium small, entirely surrounded by the first segment, with 0-1 projecting acicula on both sides and with 2-4 eyes. Mouth ventral. The short pharynx is eversible, with papillae and 4 strong jaws. A pair of long, smooth palps fused to the ventral side of the first parapodia. The first segment with anteriorly directed neuropodia, and 1-2 pairs of forwardly directed tentacular cirri. Parapodia uniramous or sub-biramous, with 1-2 acicula. Neuropodium well-developed, always with an aciculum, with or without chaetae. Notopodium sometimes with an aciculum, mostly represented by a bulbous dorsal cirri. Chaetae simple or compound.
Pygidium with two cirri (Pisionidae).
Pisionids live interstitially in sand or shell habitats, a lifestyle reflected in the body shape and the reduced parapodia and the other appendages. However, in the males in the genus Pisione the mound of the nephridiopore at the ventral base of some parapodia develops into an elongated copulatory apparatus during the breeding season. The trochophore larvae are planktonic before settling and metamorphosing. The diet is not known.
After: Kirkegaard, 1992 and Chambers and Muir, 1997.
The following taxa of this family occur in the region:
Genus Pisione
Pisione remota