(Montagu, 1818)
Description:
Body thick, soft. Tentacles numerous, long and thick. Upper lip rounded trapezoidal. Prostomium ventrally conspicuous, cushion-like. Many eyespots dorsally and laterally behind the tentacles. Three pairs of dichotomous gills (on segments 2-4) with very short tips. Anterior gills large, rounded with long stems, middle ones smaller with shorter stems, posterior ones smaller than the middle ones. Lateral lobes on segments 2-4. 14-15 ventral shields on the thorax. Notopodial chaetae from segment 4. Seventeen chaetigerous thoracic segments. Uncinigerous tori from segment 5. Uncini in double rows on segments 11-20. Pygidium with smooth or finely papillose edge. Notopodial chaetae smooth, with narrow brims. Uncini with one big and several smaller teeth.
Size:
Up to 175 mm for 100 segments.
Tube:
Fragile, encrusted with sand or mud.
Colour:
In life yellowish red, reddish, or brown with white spots on the body, tentacles pink and whitish, gills red with white spots. In alcohol pale yellow or greyish.
Habitat:
On all kinds of level bottoms: clay, silt, fine and coarse sand and also on some types of hard bottoms; eulittoral to about 500 m; euhaline waters.
Distribution:
Eastern North Atlantic, Mediterranean, South America, Red Sea, Persian Gulf, Indian Ocean, Australia, Kerguelen, Japan. Entire Norwegian coast, Swedish west coast, Kattegat, Shetland, Scottish east coast.