Kinberg, 1858
Description:
Small worms with up to 90 segments. Body flattened, with numerous pairs of scales. Prostomium not prominent, with 1 or 3 antennae and a pair of palps. Sessile eyes present or absent.
Peristomium surrounding prostomium. Facial tubercle present or absent. Pharynx eversible, with nine dorsal and nine ventral terminal papillae and two pairs of hooked jaws.
First segment achaetous, curved around prostomium with two pairs of tentacular cirri. First neuropodia fused to lower side of head.
Parapodia biramous. Scales present on chaetigers 1, 3, 4 and 6, then alternately to the 22nd and then on all segments. The first pair are round, the rest oval to kidney-shaped. Dorsal cirri absent. Ventral cirri present. Notopodial chaetae variously ornamented capillaries and neuropodial chaetae compounds with short, unidentate blades.
Pygidium with one pair of cirri (Pholoidae).
The Pholoidae are infaunal carnivorous jawed polychaetes and have been observed feeding on other small invertebrates including other polychaetes. Some interstitial species brood eggs and young in the body, within the scales or under the scales. Some species have larvae with a long planktonic existence, with planktotrophic or lecithotrophic development. Pholoids may be crawling forms (found under rocks, in crevices, or on mud bottoms with shells and debris) or interstitial. They are widely distributed and have been found from intertidal depths to 1153 m.
After: Chambers and Muir, 1997.
For identification to species level, jump to the Picture key: Page 44: Pholoidae
The following taxa of this family occur in the region:
Genus Pholoe
Pholoe inornata
Pholoe pallida
Pholoe synophthalmica