McIntosh, 1874
Description:
A scale-worm with a body of uniform width. Dorsal and ventral surfaces smooth.
Prostomium bilobed, without peaks, with a median antenna, a pair of lateral antennae, laterally inserted, and a pair of palps. Two pairs of eyes, the anterior pair in front of the line of greatest width, the posterior pair near the rear margin.
First segment bearing chaetae and a pair of dorsal and ventral tentacular cirri. Scales overlap, almost covering the body. The first pair of scales are oval, the rest oval to kidney-shaped, the margins smooth and the surfaces with a few well dispersed small tubercles.
Notopodia very small, with a ventral acicular ligule and few chaetae. Notopodial chaetae spinose with knob-like tips.
Neuropodial chaetae spinose with bidentate knob-like tips, a few in upper and lower positions with unidentate tips (M. andreapolis-detail).
Size:
Up to 17 mm for 35 chaetigers.
Colour:
Scales pale, often with an irregular brown ring and a central spot.
Habitat:
Sublittoral to 90 m, on muddy sand, in the burrows of Labidoplax and Leptosynapta .
Distribution:
North Atlantic up to Mediterranean, northern North Sea and Skagerrak.