Marion & Bobretzky, 1875
Description:
Body quite small, cylindrical with up to 80 segments; 7 thoracic segments.
Peristomium with 2 eyes.
7-20 pairs of radioli with long pinnules; connected by a basal membrane. Operculum a globular transparent vesicle on one or both second dorsal radioli, which have side-branches like the others in the crown. Each radiole with about seven paired red eyes consisting of irregular groups of eight to ten lenticular units.
Collar complete, ventrally folded and fused with the thoracic membrane. Collar chaetae bordered, scarcely geniculate with a slender knee, finely serrated and tapered distally. Apomatus-chaetae in abundance throughout thoracic chaetigers. They are bent chaetae with a denticulate distal part.
The anterior abdominal segments are achaetous. Abdominal chaetae are finely denticulate sickle-chaetae; most posterior segments bear smooth capillaries.
Thoracic and abdominal uncini are posteriorly rounded, with a basal incision and numerous teeth along the straight anterior edge.
Size:
Up to 30 mm for 80 chaetigers.
Tube:
Just over 1 mm across. Thick, cylindrical, tapering, meandering, white, opaque and bearing fine transverse growth lines and indistinct longitudinal ridges. Generally solitary. Very similar to the tube of young Protula tubularia .
Colour:
Reddish or orange coloured. Thorax spotted greenish-red. Crown pale yellow, spotted and banded with red.
Habitat:
On rock and shells on the lower shore and in shallow water.
Distribution:
Northern North Sea, Skagerrak, Kattegat, English Channel, Arctic to West-Africa. Probably cosmopolitan.