(Gosse, 1855)
Description:
Body thick, abdomen tapering towards pygidium. Prostomium with a pair of prominent glandular ridges and many eyespots. Gills in two well-separated groups; the four gills of each group arranged in two transverse rows in a rhomboid pattern, not united.
5-10 very large, abruptly tapering chaetae on each side in front of gills.
Seventeen thoracic segments with notopodia with capillary chaetae, the posterior fourteen also with neuropodia with uncini. Uncini with one row of 4-7 teeth. Fifteen abdominal uncinigerous segments.
Pygidium with two long lateral cirri.
Size:
Up to 55 mm.
Tube:
A thin layer of secretion encrusted with a thick, relatively firm layer of mud or clay, usually with plant fragments in a characteristic ringlike pattern.
Colour:
Head and thorax dorsally with brown pigmentation.
Habitat:
On mud, eulittoral to upper sublittoral.
Distribution:
British Isles, perhaps Skagerrak.