Big hamlet worm
| Big hamlet worm | ||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
.jpg)
Great hamlet worm ( Ophelia limacina ) |
||||||||||||
| Systematics | ||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||
| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Ophelia limacina | ||||||||||||
| ( Rathke , 1843) |
The great hamlet worm ( Ophelia limacina ) is a marine annelid worm belonging to the genus Ophelia within the multi - bristle family of the Opheliidae , which is found in seas throughout the northern hemisphere.
features
The Great Hamlet worm has a spindle-shaped, pink to flesh-colored body up to about 5.5 cm long with 33 to 40 segments and an abdominal groove that begins on the 6th to 9th segment and runs to the end of the body. The cone-shaped prostomium is very small. The notopodia and neuropodia are shaped like small rounded lobes. Around 16 to 24 segments from the 6th bristle-bearing segment onwards have gills that are missing in the last 4 to 10 bristle-bearing segments. All of the bristles are smooth and capillary, becoming very long at the posterior segments. The pygidium has two long papillae and on the back a semicircle of 8 to 14 smaller, thin papillae.
distribution and habitat
Ophelia limacina is cosmopolitan in all oceans, including in the northern Atlantic Ocean including the North Sea , the Baltic Sea , the Mediterranean and the Arctic , but also in the northern Pacific Ocean .
The Great Hamlet Worm lives on sand from the intertidal zone to a depth of 500 m.
Way of life
Ophelia limacina digs its way freely living through the sandy sediment. It feeds on detritus and bacteria by swallowing rather rough grains of sand, which have a relatively large surface area and to which as much organic matter and bacteria as possible adhere.
Development cycle
There are no studies on the development cycle of the Great Hamlet Worm.
literature
- Grant Rowe: A Provisional Guide to the familiy Opheliidae (Polychaeta) from shallow waters of the British Isles. Emu, Durley, Southampton 2010.
Web links
- Species profile at Beach Explorer
- MJ de Kluijver et al .: Ophelia limacina (Rathke, 1843). Macrobenthos of the North Sea - Polychaeta, Marine Species Identification Portal
Individual evidence
- ^ H. Edward Clifton, Janet K. Thompson: Macaronichnus segregatis - a feeding structure of shallow marine polychaetes. Journal of Sedimentary Petrology 48 (4), pp. 1293-1302. Society of Economic Paleontologists and Mineralogists, 1978.