Fire bristle worms

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Fire bristle worms
Hermodice carunculata

Hermodice carunculata

Systematics
Empire : Animals (Animalia)
Trunk : Annelids (Annelida)
Class : Polychaete (Polychaeta)
Subclass : Aciculata
Order : Amphinomida
Family : Fire bristle worms
Scientific name
Amphinomidae
Savigny in Lamarck , 1818

The fire bristle worms (Amphinomidae) are a family of small to large mostly predatory, rare necrophagous and in some cases parasitic polychaetes and (Polychaeta), which are found in oceans around the world from the coast to the deep sea of fixed cnidarians or by other sessile Feed animals .

features

The multi-bristle of the family Amphinomidae have an elongated or oval, flattened and solid, often very vividly colored segmented body with a mostly rectangular cross-section, which in adult animals is a few millimeters to 50 cm long and without bristles up to 1.5 cm wide. The parapodia have strong bristles and branched gills . The bristles are usually coated with a toxin, often have calcium deposits and usually break off when touched, causing sensitive pain. From the bristles of Eurythoe complanata defense substance is complanine been isolated.

The triangular or oval to pentagonal prostomium consists of two lobes and is rounded at the front, where it is also the widest. On the anterior lobe it has a pair of lateral antennae and two similarly shaped slender ventrolateral palps , on the posterior lobe a central antenna and behind as a distinguishing feature a caruncle, a fleshy outgrowth on the edge of the two nuchal organs . The peristomium is reduced to lips on the mouth.

The longitudinal muscles of the skin muscle tube are arranged in four bundles. The first segment curves around the prostomium and, like the following segments, bears bifurcated parapodia with truncated cylindrical notopodia and tapering neuropodia protruding over the notopodia, with the branched gills at the base of the notopodia. Both dorsal and ventral cirrus are present, but epidermal papillae and cirrus on the pygidium as well as a throat membrane are missing. The thickened, muscular and warty lower lip covered with a thick cuticle can be pulled forward. The strongly muscular pharynx does not have any jaws or teeth, but has numerous transverse ribs.

The intestinal canal is a straight tube. It is believed that most of the segments are endowed with mixonephridia . The closed blood vessel system of the Amphinomidae does not have a central heart.

The fire bristle worms feed as carnivores on sea ​​anemones , corals , sessile hydrozoa , sponges and sea ​​squirts , the tissue of which they rasp off with their hard lower lip. Some species, such as the genera Eurythoe and Pareurythoe , are omnivorous and prefer carrion , while Benthoscolex cubanus lives as an endoparasite in the intestines of the sea ​​urchin Archeopneustes hystrix .

The Amphinomidae are mostly of separate sexes with females and males of equal size, which appear in roughly equal numbers. Hermaphroditism is less common . The fertilization takes place in the open sea water, and the development usually takes place over a free swimming larval stage up to the metamorphosis to the creeping worm. Amphinome rostrata and Hipponoa gaudichaudi, however, hatch their young, which in both species still live for a while at the parapodia of the mother animal. In many species, asexually as well as sexual reproduction has been observed by autotomy , for example Eurythoe complanata .

Some sample styles

One of the largest and most widespread species of the Amphinomidae is the bearded fire bristle worm ( Hermodice carunculata ), which is up to 30 cm long and is cosmopolitan in warmer seas . Its poisonous bristles can cause pain in humans for several days.

Genera

The Amphinomidae family is divided into 23 genera :

Amphinominae Lamarck, 1818
Archinominae Kudenov, 1991
without subfamily

literature

  • Stanley J. Edmonds: Fauna of Australia, Volume 4A. Polychaetes & Allies. The Southern Synthesis 4. Commonwealth of Australia, 2000. Class Polychaeta. Pp. 144-148, Family Amphinomidae.

Web links

Commons : Amphinomidae  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Amphinomidae Lamarck, 1818. WoRMS , 2018. Retrieved June 14, 2018.