Beddard, 1892
Description
Large smooth, pink worms. Finger-like gills of variable length, one dorsal and one ventral gill per segment, in tail region. Anterior dorsal bundles with 1-8 short (134-160 µm) and thin hair chaetae, and 4-12 crotchets with short or fully reduced upper tooth, about 120 µm long. Rearward, in gill-bearing segments, no hair chaetae present. Ventral crotchets by 4-16, with short or fully reduced upper tooth. No modified genital chaetae. Male pore in XI unpaired. No coelomocytes. Length 20-185 mm, thickness can exceed 1 mm, segment number 74-270.
Burrowing in sediment.
Distribution
Cosmopolitan but probably of Sino-Indian origin; the commonest tubificid in most tropical countries; in Europe evidently introduced and naturalized in many places.
Ecology
In freshwater, particularly in heated water bodies.
Reproduction
Sexual, with eggs laid in cocoons. Also architomy (fragmentation).
Literature
Beddard, 1892: 325, Pl. XIX Figs 1-15; Brinkhurst and Jamieson, 1971: 563-564, Fig. 8.36D-F; Chekanovskaya, 1981: 363-365, Figs 184-185; Hrabe, 1981: 75-76, Pl. 12 Figs 7-8; Kasprzak, 1981: 151-152, Figs 499-502.